


Nightmare Asylum

by Darby_Harper



Series: Mad Mad World-The Changeling Universe [1]
Category: Rammstein
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Medical Torture, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Urban Fantasy, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 53,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8836363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darby_Harper/pseuds/Darby_Harper
Summary: A crazed madman kidnaps his favorite band's lead guitar player, believing that his work outside his band is the signal for their breakup. Can the rest of his band rescue him, along with a fellow captive, before the mad doctor begins his experiments without becoming prisoners themselves?:::Disclaimer: Any similarity between the fictional version of the person portrayed here and the actual person is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction. This is not an attempt to defame the character of said person on the basis of libel, as the work is FICTIONAL (and NOT an intently false statement created with the express purpose of misleading others about the actual character of said person). All rights reserved





	1. Vengeance Is Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, dear friends, IT'S BACK, the fic that has no end!!
> 
> After having quite a few messages on my Tumblr account wondering where this went as well as what happened with all the characters, I finally decided to bring this back. It's been revised quite a bit from the original, as well as being posted on Wattpad. 
> 
> So, to all of you who asked me to bring the world of The Changelings back, this is for you. This is also dedicated with a hundred billion tonnes of love and stuff to my heart-sibling N, who kicked me in the ass and gave me the final push in deciding what to do with this. 
> 
> Oh yeah, and another billion hundred tonnes of love and stuff to the boys in Rammstein.

_Vengeance Is Mine_

_"You must be careful when you look too long into darkness, for some day you might find the darkness looking back at you."_

_:::_

Is it possible to have one's _hair_ hurt? I'd had headaches that made me think there were little men inside my skull trying to carve their way out with dull drill bits, but never one that made every single strand of my hair hurt. And when I came to think of it, my skin hurt. Not quite as bad as a sunburn but it was in the neighborhood. I started to open my eyes...

They wouldn't.

My eyelids felt like they were sealed shut with Super Glue. Panic gelled in my gut as I struggled to force them open, but they didn't budge an inch. I thought I must have had a thick coat of sleep-caused eyeball goop combined with eye makeup stuck to my lashes and all I had to do was carefully scrub the goo off my eyelashes while not pulling any of them out.

But I couldn't move.

Not one muscle. The panic came on full blast then, cold sweat breaking out all and a metallic taste flooded my mouth. My heart felt like it was trying to pound its way out of my chest. It was like overdosing on bad coke, almost like a bad acid trip. But I was never been paralyzed like that, never able to at least twitch my fingers when I got fucked up in the past.

_Oh my God, was I in a wreck? What did I do? Did I break my back, sever my spinal cord? Did I fall off stage or walk into one of our pyro stunts and I can't feel anything because I've been burnt to a crisp? Damn, Kruspe, get hold of yourself. Maybe you're having a nightmare, one of those where you want to wake up but can't. What do they call it? Sleep paralysis? That might be it. Maybe you tied on one too many last night and you're still too drunk to move. Stop panicking, that's making everything worse. Take a deep breath and start over._

So I started over. I took a deep breath (thankfully something I could do just fine), and thought very hard about moving one of my fingers. After moments of straining and cursing to myself, I got the pinky finger on my right hand to move ever so slightly before the paralysis set back in. Working on getting my eyes to open was easier after that but by then I was so tired I wanted to fall back into the well of unconsciousness I'd crawled out of.

_What the fuck have I done to myself? I haven't done dope in years, so why am I such a fucking mess? This better not be some stupid practical joke of Paul's because if it is, I'm gonna stomp his ass right into the rug! But wait a second, I haven't seen him or anyone else in the band since...I can't remember. Why can't I remember?_

"Easy there," a soft, feminine voice drifted through the fog of my growing fear. "The worst of the side effects will wear off in a bit but if you panic they'll get worse. Take my word on it." Warm hands pushed my hair off my face and I welcomed another human's touch even if it made my head ache more fiercely than ever. The touch seemed to jerk my nerves completely online and before long I could feel that I was lying on something rough-textured but soft, a scratchy cover thrown over me. It took me even longer to convince my eyes to open halfway and I had to close them quickly against the dim lights dangling from above me as they were too bright. The same strong, gentle hands moved from my head and massaged the feeling back into my limbs, soothing away my panic.

At long last I had the energy to open my eyes fully and push myself up until I was sort of half sitting up, propped up on one arm. I peered into the murky darkness around me, trying to figure out where I was. The first thing I figured out is I was in a windowless room about the size of a recording studio, made out of cinder blocks with a heavy steel door. The door looked like one you'd find in a bank or in an airplane, and next to the handle was a keypad with two lights on it, both glowing red. I could feel cool air blowing around me and I noticed several small slits near the ceiling, too small for a person to fit through. The floor was concrete and bare save for whatever I was sitting on with a drain set into the floor nearby. There was a pile of stained mattresses shoved up against one of the walls, a locked, steel cabinet set into another wall, and I could sort-of see through a gap in the wall across from me that there might be another small room, probably a bathroom, but the darkness was too deep for me to figure out more.

The spurt of energy that got me this far was fading fast, so the person who I woke up with began to pile pillows and a couple blankets around me so I could still be sitting up a bit without having to use any more of my strength. I turned to thank them and when I did it took everything I had not to shriek and shove them away. Bending over me was a drop-dead, gorgeous woman with the most vibrant shade of red hair and sea-blue eyes I've ever seen. This wouldn't be so bad had the tips of very sharp fangs not been peeking through her lips and the hands she had resting on my arm not been tipped with sharp, jet black nails. There was a smudge of dried blood across her chin; she wiped it away with the back of one of her hands. Her pretty face twisted with disgust and shame when she saw my horrified look. "Don't worry, it's not yours. It's bottled blood."

"Ah...uh...it's not every day I come to after a wild night on the town that I don't remember with a vampire-lookin' chick bending over me," I replied. "Is this some kind of stupid joke the band's playing on me? I mean, I know we've got some really 'out there' fans but this is kinda weird, even for us. Or for me."

The redhead turned her back to me, hair sliding over her shoulder to display an amazing tattoo design on her back. It started at the tops of her shoulders and vanished below the blanket she had wrapped around her waist. It was a pair of wings done in shades of grey, black and white ink. Razor blade-edged "feathers" were interspersed with pure white, perfect dove feathers that shone with a rainbow hue like mourning dove feathers. Some of the razor blade "feathers" were chipped, broken and rusted, while others were perfect and clean. In several places blood coated the edges and stained the metal. Flames licked around the biggest parts of the tattoo design while water droplets slid away from the feathers towards the bottom of the wings and disappear. I've seen some elaborate tattoo work in my days but this was an exquisite work of art.

The wings looked so real I expected the woman to stretch them out from her spine any second. I wanted to reach over and touch her skin to see if the tattoo was simply ink driven into flesh with needles or just my brain finally calling it quits with reality and this person is some kind of weird steampunk-gothic angel being. I caught myself at the last second; something told me that surprising this woman would be a Very Bad Idea.

"I'm being rude," the woman said, turning back to me as she pulled the blanket up from her waist and tucked it around her into a toga. "My name is Lilly Bailey. And if I'm right, you're one of the guys from Rammstein."

I pulled my brightest smile up from somewhere and bowed my head to her, trying to lighten the mood as best as I could. "Richard Z. Kruspe at your service. Call me Reesh, all pretty ladies have that permission right off." Lilly smiled at me and said, "You're a lot different than the pictures and videos I've seen of you. You're not as tall as I thought you were. And your tan is pretty faded. I'd recognize that hair of yours anywhere."

"Well, spending three months cooped up in a recording studio in the dead of a Berlin winter will do that to you. _Danke_ for saying not as tall, not as _big_. That can do horrible things to a man's ego, you know."

"Seeing as I was the one to get you out of your wet and bloody clothes when you were thrown in here a few days ago, I can say that I was quite careful in saying what I did. I know how you boys are about penis sizes and all," Lilly snickered as she turned back to face me. Blushing, I peeked under the blanket and sure enough, I didn't have a stitch on. And neither did Lilly. All we had were blankets and they weren't that thick.

 _Oh my God,_ _we're naked and oh shit please don't let me get a boner and you little bastard you settle down and don't fucking embarrass me in front of this nice lady..._

" _Richard_ , you don't have anything between your legs I haven't seen a hundred times before. I used to be a nurse and once you see one dick, you've seen them all. I will say yours isn't half bad. I'd give it a six on a scale of one to ten," Lilly said with a snort. "Haven't seen an uncut guy for a long time though."

I shoved my head under one of the pillows I was propped against and wailed, "Why the fuck are we naked? Did I do anything? Did _we_ do anything? Anything I need to be really, really concerned about?"

Lilly patted my back and said, "No, sweetie, you didn't do anything except sleep. Do you know you drool, snore _and_ talk in your sleep?"

"I do not snore! And I don't drool either!" I groused, pushing the pillow off of my head and shoving it to the side, making sure the whole time the blanket I was under was pulled up almost to my chin. "Paul's the one who talks in his sleep, not me. I swear the man does not shut up for _anything. Gott sei dank_ we have a lead singer that can go two whole months without saying squat to anyone, I guess that makes up for Paulchen never shutting up. But I do _not_ snore! Or drool."

Lilly tried not to laugh but failed. She gave up and threw her head back, laughing until tears leaked from her eyes. I couldn't help it, I started giggling and before long we were howling with laughter. With an effort, I pulled myself together and asked, "So... the naked part. Why?"

"Oh. That. That's going to take a while to explain. There's things I have to tell you before the naked part," Lilly said with a sigh. There was a blush high on her cheeks that made her blue eyes sparkle and the color deepen. I could learn to like that---hell, I wanted to be the reason for that sparkle! "Well, from what I've seen we're not going to go anywhere soon. I think we have the time," I said.

Lilly sighed. I hated to see the merriment drop away from her face so quickly; she was exquisite while she was laughing. She re-arranged herself , arms wrapped around a pillow, hair half-hiding her face. "Please believe me Reesh, this isn't a prank. I wish it was," she murmured. I stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue when she was ready. She took a deep breath and said, "What do you know about virology?"

"Very little," I said. "I know it's one of those big up and coming medical fields and that some of the work that's done is on viruses like AIDS. There's been a lot of good things come out of virus research. And that some of what goes on in the labs can be on the hairy edge of ethical. But that's straining the limits of what I know."

"That's the edge of the tip of the iceberg, but you're right. Most of the work that's done right now, or at least what I was involved in, was working on ways to pick apart viruses and use parts of that to create vaccines, or to study how they behave under certain conditions. There are black labs out there but nobody will admit that they know about them or how to find them."

"Well, according to every horror movie I've seen where there's a big, bad epidemic it usually comes from a...black lab, you called it? Or some poor idiot poking around things he or she shouldn't be messing with," I said, wiggling around under my blanket and finally finding a comfortable position. I looked up at Lilly and smiled at her again. She returned the smile and tapped me lightly on the top of my head which put happy shivers up and down my spine. Lilly had something about her that I couldn't put my finger on that made every bit of me tingle. Some parts more than others, obviously. She gifted me with another one of her pretty smiles and began absently playing with my hair.

 _Oh yes_ , I mused, _I could get used to this._

"I used to work for a lab that was working on creating a vaccine for rabies using material from the AIDS virus and the rabies virus, among other things. No, I didn't inject cute little mice with nasty things, I was a drone in a white lab coat or a hazmat suit bent over a microscope nine hours a day. When I started working, I had my Master's degree in nursing. I worked all over the hospital but eventually I ended up in the Trauma Center. When the hospital had a major layoff, I lost my job along with half of the nursing staff and something like twenty doctors. One of the doctors I'd worked with knew about an opening with a company that was hiring people from the medical industry, so I applied for everything I was qualified for. I even put in my application to do clerical work. I just wanted to be back in the industry and it didn't matter what. I missed it. I wasn't out of work two months before Vis-Tek called me and said I'd impressed them with my qualifications, and they had a lab technician-slash-research job that they thought I'd like. I didn't have to be told twice, I broke the land speed record from my house to the office that day to sign on."

" For a long time, things were okay, you know? I worked way too much overtime, didn't get enough sleep, didn't use all my vacation days like I should have. I had a future with Vis-Tek. I liked what I was doing, liked most of the people I was working with. Except one."

"Your boss?"

"Nope. I'd been with the company for almost six years when upper management got excited about hiring some big-time virologist away from the military. I didn't know anything about him and as long as he wasn't going to ride roughshod over my lab, I didn't care. I should have known something was up when two of the biggest labs in the building that had stood vacant as long as some of the senior staff could remember were renovated. The labs that were open were ancient and we had people knocking each other over because they were so small for more than one person and the essential equipment but up till then, any chances of those labs being opened had been shot down by upper management for some reason or another. I can't even begin to guess at what all the work cost, but I do know at the next staff meeting, everyone was told to cut their expenses to the bone and not ask why."

I could see where this was going. "Let me guess, new guy came in like he was king of the world and everyone was expected to bow and kiss his arse?"

Lilly gave me a thumbs up. "Got it in one. Everyone was either awed by the guy or scared to death of him. And it's not like he looked dangerous or came off as dangerous. He was your stereotypical middle aged scientist, soft around the middle, balding and kind of absent minded. Didn't have the ability to watch what he said at all. No filter, you get it? He said and did stuff around people that would have gotten anyone else beaten to a pulp or fired. Oh, and that was the milder stuff. He was obsessed with animals having sex, all kinds of creepy porn and horror stories. I overheard one of the lab techs from his office saying he had a stash of torture porn in his office somewhere that he'd whack off to if he was in the office alone. That tech got fired the day after she complained about him showing some of his prized pictures to her and asking her which one got her horny. He was inappropriate to a lot of people but no one wanted to rock the boat and get reprimanded or fired."

"Sounds like he'd be great inspiration for Till to get some songs for our next album. We ought to introduce them," I said half-jokingly. Lilly's already pale skin turned whiter and I realized trying to be funny wasn't appropriate just then. Being careful of her fingernails as I had no clue if they were as dangerously sharp as they looked, I took one of her hands and chaffed it between mine. "Sorry. Didn't mean to try and be funny. Is he still at the lab?"

"Yes. Things finally came to a head between him and me when he tried to grab me one night when I was leaving the office. I punched him in the face and broke his nose. He'd been bothering me almost from the beginning, telling me how beautiful I was, how he'd treat me like a queen, all that stuff. I tried to be friendly, tried to keep everything light but he wasn't having a bit of that. He was already mad at me the night I broke his nose because I'd told him to fuck off and die in front of half the office the day before. My telling him off again and punching him in the face in front of our bosses made him even madder."

"What the hell? Didn't your boss care that he was doing things he shouldn't? Couldn't you do anything?" I asked, feeling my eyebrows rise as well as my temper.

Lilly continued, "I tried to file a complaint with the HR department but they told me I was the one who was in the wrong and said I had 24 hours to box up my personal stuff, turn over my keys, everything, and leave. If I did as they said, they wouldn't file a police report and I'd get an okay referral from them if I went to work somewhere else. If I didn't and made a fuss, went to the cops, I'd be really, really sorry."

"Fuck. So now what? He's still not bothering you, is he?"

Lilly began to shake. I let go of her hands and wrapped her in my arms, seeing the familiar signs of a panic attack in her eyes. She held on to me for a long while, snuffling back tears and trembling. "You don't have to tell me anything else right now. Just hang on to me as long as you want to."

"You deserve to know why you're here. You're in so much trouble, so much trouble..."

"Take your time _libeling._ I'm a patient man," I told Lilly. She shook her head and pulled away from me, wiping the last of her tears on her hands like a little girl. She tried to lighten the mood a bit, saying, "You have such a pretty accent when you speak English. I know you guys don't do many interviews in English and then there's the whole song catalog thing."

"We're all halfway decent with English, you gotta be. It's just Germanic stubbornness that we don't do much in anything _but_ German," I teased. "Flake would kill me if he heard me say that and Till would be right behind him. _Ach_ , I love them dearly but they make me crazy sometimes."

We sat in silence, both of us straining our ears to hear anything other than the distant whirr of the ventilation fans and our own breathing. Lilly broke the silence at last. "The man who's got us locked in this room is Neal Williams. Like I said, he's one of the world's smartest and most talented virologists. He's supposed to be developing an AIDS vaccine, at least when I left, but he's doing something else. I know it in my gut that he is. Right before the night I cold-cocked Neal, my boss came to me and said all of my research was going to be transferred to Neal and I was going to be reassigned elsewhere. He wouldn't tell me where, just that I'd be credited with any work he would be working from. I left early that day because if I'd stayed I'd probably have punched my boss, I was so damn mad. I knew something was going on because he'd always been a fair, up front kind of guy. When I got in the next day, all my lab work was gone, all my paperwork, my laptop had been fried and so was my desktop computer. I couldn't get anyone to tell me what had happened, or even talk to me. I knew something bad was going on, and you know the rest."

"So where do I figure in?" I asked, not really liking where this story was going.

"He thinks your side project, Emigrate, is breaking up Rammstein. He's he's out and out obsessed with you guys. He's worse than any teenage girl can be over whatever boy band is the flavor of the day on MTV. There was an interview he was really upset over, you'd said something about Rammstein not being ready to get back together and work on a new album and you talked about Emigrate's next album. He went sky high and locked himself in his office for the rest of the day. It took the cleaning crew all weekend to clean that place up. I don't know what they had to deal with but it was news all over the office that they'd asked for a huge bonus and demanded that they never have to deal with his office again. And they got it."

Lilly took a drink from a bottle of water that was on the blankets, then handed it to me to finish off. She took the empty bottle back, tucked the blanket that she was wearing like a toga around herself tighter, then continued. "When I started working at Vis-Tech Neal found out I sort of liked Rammstein, he went crazy telling me every single thing he knew about you guys, from really stupid and mundane things right down to shoe sizes and blood types. He knows where your kids live, where they go to school; he boasted that there wasn't anything you six could keep private that he couldn't find out in less than 8 hours. And I mean stuff that no one outside yourselves and close friends know. "

And here came the very familiar gut churning ache of a panic attack. I guarded my privacy well but when it came to my daughter Khira Lhi and my immediate family, I was a rabid dog. I wasn't joking when I told people that anyone who touched a hair on her head would die a slow, painful death and I wouldn't feel a bit sorry doing it. That this miserable little fuck had all the information Lilly said that he had made me even angrier. Fuck with me, that's fine but do the same to my child and my friends who are as much my family as anyone can be? That's an immediate death sentence. I looked up at the ceiling and swore mightily, using every nasty word and phrase I knew. Lilly waited patiently and when I was done, she leaned against my shoulder and sighed, apologizing that she'd upset me. I covered her hand with mine and leaned against her, turning all of this madness over and over in my head. This was something out of my worst nightmares---hell, out of every celebrity's nightmare.

"I don't know when he saw my tattoo, but the night he kidnapped me, the first thing he said once he'd stuffed me into his car was that he was going to punish me for not only marking my skin against his wishes but for all the times I'd ignored him, made fun of him and embarrassed him in front of everyone. He didn't leave off with beating me up and raping me. That wasn't punishment enough as far as he was concerned. He had to do _this_ to me ."

Lilly opened her mouth so I could see the sharp fangs that slid fully out from the roof of her mouth, then held her hands out and watched them shake. " I've never been this pale-skinned. I used to wear bright blue contact lenses and I dyed my hair this color. All of this, as far as I know, is permanent. This and some other things I've figured out since...Reesh, he injected me with whatever he came up with. I almost died when it got into my system."

"He thinks shooting you up with some kind of freaky drug after he raped you and beat you up wasn't enough? " I snapped.

"It's not a drug. It's a _virus_ that came from his research, my rabies research and something he had to have gotten from the military or a person as crazy as he is. I can tell the virus is changing me because my night vision is getting better. So is my hearing and sense of smell. I don't know where the teeth came from, maybe he tinkered with the viruses for shits and giggles. And I have no idea what else the virus is going to do to me, how infectious I am, nothing."

I had no reason to argue with Lilly that there was no way in the world you could make a virus or drug that would change a person right down to their DNA. You see, I have acquaintances within the music industry that are very, _very_ into conspiracy theories and more kinds of weirdness than you would imagine. Not like I believed any of them but I'd heard more than once that there were people experimenting with viruses in ways that once were fictional.

When you're in a band like Rammstein, people...tell you... _things_. Weird, crazy, completely out of your head weird things. We're magnets for the insane sometimes and up till now it hadn't bothered me at all. _Gott im himmel_ knows anyone who plays with fire and likes it has to be a little off in the head. This kind of insanity was different and more dangerous than any pyro stunt I'd ever seen or been part of. I remembered the stories about researchers in hidden labs all over the world who were experimenting with viruses and drugs that could do things like what you'd see in the movies, and all because they wanted to see what they could do. Not to save lives, not to create new medicines, but just because they _could_.

Lilly sobbed hard, once, then let me pull her down into my arms. She tucked my head into her shoulder and cried her eyes out as I tried to make sense of the whole mess and just couldn't. I could feel tears hovering at the edges of my eyes. "Oh Lilly...oh my God, I am so sorry," I whispered. I felt her shaking grow worse as she lost the strength to keep from crying and I gave up on being brave and bawled my eyes out.

After what seemed forever, I was drained to the point that I was falling asleep and my eyeballs were swelling shut. Lilly had fallen asleep at some point and I hadn't noticed. Finally, I gave up on staying awake and drifted off, afraid if I went under completely I'd never wake up again. But I couldn't stop sleep from coming and even as I went off the edge into sleep, I fought the whole way down.

  
  


 


	2. Don't Die Before I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One prick is all it takes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. None of this ever happened. It is for entertainment purposes only, no money is made from this work. All rights are reserved.

_Don't Die Before I Do_

 

_When anger rises, think of the consequences.-Confucius_

::::

I was dreaming that a very large bee was stinging me in the neck. I swatted at it but it wouldn't move.The stinging grew worse, turning into a concentrated area of _ouchshit shit_ _scheiße was zum Tefuel was zur Hölle **verdammt**_ that woke me up better than a bucket of cold water to the face. I sat up with a yell, my fist connecting with something sharp. There was a pudgy, balding and badly dressed man stalking across the room away from me, shaking his hand and hissing under his breath. I looked down and saw a syringe with the longest, thickest needle I'd ever seen sticking out of the side of my right hand. I swore and jerked the needle free then sucked at the side of my hand;it hadn't gone in deep enough to bring blood but it stung like a bitch. The ache in the side of my neck was getting worse, and when I put my hand up to feel what might be the cause, my hand came back dripping wet with blood.

 "What the...?" I yelled, trying to stand up and going right back down on my ass. I had absolutely no strength to stand up, and breathing was starting to become more difficult. I had no idea what this idiot had done but I was willing to bet it was caused by whatever had been in the syringe I'd stuck my hand on.

 "Stings, doesn't it?" the pudgy little man said over his shoulder. I shot him a glare that could have melted steel and struggled to my feet...and went back down again. My legs didn't want to hold me up; the least little bit of pressure made them ache and twitch like crazy. Lilly was hogtied, gagged and lying off to my left, fighting the heavy nylon ropes and murder in her eyes. She had a black eye that looked recent, blood dripping slowly from her nose. "I had to knock a little sense into this bitch, you just cannot get her to behave around the boys when she's in season," the man said as he came back to us. "Pretty, isn't she, Richard? I know how much you like pretty girls even if they belong to someone else."

 That was a low, low blow. I knew exactly what he was talking about. That I'd slept with Till's ex-wife had been one thing, that she'd had my daughter was another. It had been a finely honed sore spot between him and me for a time but thankfully the animosity was long gone. We only spoke of it occasionally and now with affection rather than rancor. My daughter never seemed to care whose name she had, she loved both of us equally. The thought that I might never see my dear ones again knotted my guts hard. I hissed in rage as the little man patted my head and chortled, "Can't blame you for that my friend. But you know, pretty girls should know better than to share what they're not supposed to. And pretty little boys like yourself should keep their dicks in their pants. Unless you _want_ to spend the rest of your life peeing through a drinking straw."

 I curled up into a ball, trying to make it hard for this gibbering freak to grab me, protecting my crotch,ignoring the blood that was dripping down my neck and staining the concrete floor below me. I didn't want this monster touching me anymore than he had already. I didn't have much choice; he snatched me up by my hair and one arm, dragged me across the room, bruising my spine and scraping the skin off of my elbows. I swore, tried to kick and bite but I might as well have not wasted my time, I couldn't seem to be able to coordinate legs, arms, anything. He dumped me near the doorway to the second room I'd spotted when I woke the first time in the cell. Dropping a pile of towels on my face, he said,"You'll be able to move in a couple minutes. Get in that shower and clean yourself up while I have a talk with my girl. And do not,under any circumstances, come out until I come and get you. If you don't do what I tell you, things are going to be worse for you and her than they already are." The tone of his voice told me that I'd better not fuck this up, so once I could move, I crawled into the bathroom and into the shower, dragging the pile of towels behind me.

 Yes, I crawled like a fucking dog. It was all I could do.

 Once I was flopped out on the shower floor like a beached jellyfish, it took me forever to be able to reach up and smack the shower control on. Thankfully it must have been set to "warm" because the water that hit my bruised up face was heavenly. I sat there on the pristine tiles, brain racing a thousand miles an hour while I waited for the rest of me to catch up. At long last I was able to stand up (even if it was clinging to the metal grab bars) and with one hand keeping a death grip around the nearest bar, I reached over to what I figured was a soap dispenser. I was right; a huge cloud of mint-scented foam plopped into my palm. I scrubbed myself all over, not caring that there wasn't a curtain in front of the shower and no door to the room. All I wanted at that moment was to get clean and not smell like ditch water, day's-old sweat and blood.

 I was slowly toweling off when I heard Lilly begin to scream. I started for the door but caught myself at the last second, remembering the threats the little man had made earlier. It killed me inside to huddle in the doorway, hands clamped over my ears to try and not hear her screaming with red rage and pain. Her cries grew fainter till all I could hear was her heavy breathing, then the thud of her landing on the pile of mattresses. I heard footsteps coming my way and looked up to see our jailer, his rumpled clothing covered in blood and cradling against his chest a very swollen up, bite marked and bruised hand. He did not look a bit happy and he didn't have to grunt and gesture at me twice, I burst out of the bathroom like I'd been shot out of a cannon and hurried over to Lilly. She wasn't bound anymore but the ropes had left deep, angry welts everywhere. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing hard, like a horse after a race. I didn't touch her, but called her name softly.

 "Lilly? _Libechen?_ It's Reesh. I'm here. He won't touch you again."

 "Reesh? Oh ... ow," she whimpered,reaching blindly for me. I went to her and gathered her up in my arms, wrapping a blanket around her. Her skin was so cold, so very cold, and she wouldn't open her eyes no matter how much I pleaded for her to open them. Up close I could see blood crusted around her nose as well as a smear down her neck, and smell the sour, bleach-like scent of semen on her skin. White-hot anger went through me like lightning and I glared up at our jailor. "If you even think about touching her again, ever again, I'll do more than break your fucking nose!"

 "You're in no position at the moment to make any demands, _Herr_    Kruspe," the little man growled, coming over to where I huddled with Lilly, holding her to me and guarding her with everything I had left. "Now be a good little dog and I might be inclined to be nicer toward you. Or not. I'm not exactly happy with you right now."

 "You kidnapped Lilly and me because you think we did you dirty somehow? Because I said something in an interview that you didn't agree with? Because Lilly broke your nose after you wouldn't take a hint as big as the Moon and leave her be? Because she yelled at you in front of the big kids and it _hurt your widdle feewlings_?" I hissed, putting all the venom I could muster into my voice. The little man drew back his uninjured hand to slap me; I refused to flinch or move. He stopped, shook his head and growled, "That's one, Richard. You have one more freebie and after that, you're done."

 I carefully lowered Lilly onto the bed,then gingerly pushed myself to my feet. "You sick fucker, I'm not done, I'm not even good and warmed up!" I said, trying to stare him down. He was as tall as I was so it didn't work, but I channeled every bit of anger I had into standing there and not giving an inch. "I've had bigger and meaner guys in my face. You don't scare me one bit. You're like the school bully who picks on anyone smaller or weaker than they and when you meet someone bigger and meaner than you, you're all mouth and no action, so off you go,running back to your mommy. Come on big guy, you wanna see if you can slap me around?"

 That earned me the whack I'd been warned about. My ears rang and I saw stars, but I refused to budge. I'd been hit in the head more times than I wanted to remember and the smack was up there with ones that I'd never forget. "Reesh, please don't jerk his chain anymore. Please," Lilly cried. I went back to her and knelt next to her, pulling the tattered blankets around her, ignoring my own nakedness. "Richard, _don't_. Don't make him madder than he already is."

 "The lady's right. Better save that sass and that Germanic stoicism because in about, oh, ten minutes,you're going to need it," our captor said.

 "Huh?" I asked. My fingers were starting to tingle, the colors I'd been seeing at the edge of my vision since I'd been hit in the head were getting brighter and more varied. Nausea roiled through me like a wave and I pushed Lilly away, crawling over to the drain in the middle of the floor and emptying what little had been in my stomach. Spitting harshly to get the horrid taste out of my mouth, I looked over my shoulder at the little man and croaked, "You're him. You're the crazy doctor. Neal Williams. The virus guy. Huh. You're exactly as Lilly described you."

 "I'm going to pretend that's not an insult. Yes, I'm the good doctor that Lilly told you about. I'm not half the monster she says I am, though. Leave it up to a woman to misunderstand what a gentleman like me says. You can tell she'd rather lie down with vermin and swine than even think to lower herself to speak to me," Dr. Williams said. He drew back a foot and kicked me in the gut, sending me skittering across the cold floor. He kicked me a few more times, ignoring Lilly's yelling and my flailing limbs till he had me piled up in a corner. He grabbed my arms and flung me against the wall, holding me up like I weighed nothing. Dizzy, trying to keep from throwing up again and ignoring the tingling, itching and pain, I marveled at the fact that this skinny bastard was able to hoist me up and hold me in the air without straining a muscle or sweating. _Shit, he's a fucking bodybuilder or something_ , I thought.

 "How could you abandon your band?"he screamed. "How could you leave the band that you started, the band that so many people sacrificed everything they had so you could start Rammstein? How could you run off to New York City, start another band when Rammstein needs you? How could you, Richard? Do you know how many of your fans you destroyed by doing that?"

 "Listen, asshole," I began, only to have my head slammed against the wall. That was all my poor head and body could take, and I puked up pure bile right into the crazy man's face. He made a noise of disgust and dropped me to the floor where I lay, hurting worse than I had in a very long time. I was convinced he'd broken something inside me for I'd heard a crack when I hit the ground. All the discomfort I'd been starting to feel began to grow stronger and stronger; the nausea was growing worse as the last of my energy ran out of me like water. Dr. Williams took one of my arms and pulled me across the floor again, dropping me next to Lilly. She crouched over me, teeth bared, one hand on my shoulder and the other curled to deliver a heel-palm strike, her black claws like obsidian knives against her skin. "Touch him again and I'll kill you," she growled, her voice not quite human any more. "Too bad you can't get it up with a woman unless you have her tied up or you'd be dead by now. You're not gonna make that mistake again."

 The mad doctor laughed at her. "Keep telling yourself that, my dear. Looks like it might be time for you to draw on those years of nursing school, our wee Richard looks a bit green around the gills."

 I _felt_ green. And black, and blue and everything else horrible in the world. I'd managed to get a blanket over myself while Lilly was arguing with Dr. Williams but I couldn't do anything else. I was starting to burn up and freeze all at the same time; I shook so hard I thought I was having a seizure. I heard Lilly saying something to our captor but I couldn't make it out for the growing roar in my ears. The last thing I was able to make out before the roaring deafened me completely over was "You betrayed me, Richard. You betrayed me and your fans by starting...that...band. You were disrespectful to everyone. If there's anything left of you, maybe you might be able to fix that. But I don't think  there'll be enough to bury. _Viel glück_ , Richard, Lilly. At least before you both die I'll be able to see what other lovely little poisons I can try out on you two. I think animal experimentation is so awful. Why go hurt a bunny rabbit or mice when you have the perfect specimens right in front of you?" He slammed the steel door behind him, the lights going out with a loud 'click'.

Darkness, terror and pain crashed over me in a tidal wave, and I went willingly this time.


	3. Ohne Dich

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard was late for dinner that night.
> 
> Ollie and Till were ten seconds away from strangling him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. None of this ever happened. It is for entertainment purposes only, no money is made from this work. All rights are reserved.

_Ohne Dich_

 

 _When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._ -Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle

_::_

Richard was late for dinner that night.

 Ollie and Till were ten seconds away from strangling him.

The members of Rammstein had begun to pull themselves together from their short vacation before the United States leg of the tour and as tradition, met in a nice, low-key restaurant the night before they would start rehearsals to enjoy themselves before the weeks of hard work would begin. Till had left several messages on Richard's mobile phone and home phone, each message growing a little more irritated than the next. Ollie had left only one, saying "Richard, if you don't call me, Till or anyone else very, very soon, you're going to be Till-hammered by _me_ into a grease spot on the floor. Where the fuck are you?"

Ollie watched Till slowly wrangle a hapless teaspoon into a piece of modern art, hoping that Richard would show up or call before Till turned every piece of flatware on the table into artwork as well. He was keeping his temper pretty well under control but Ollie could tell one more thing and Till was going to go sky high and woe betide the innocent bystander that might be in his way. He passed a hand over his face, grabbed the teaspoon away and snapped, "Till, stop it! What did this poor teaspoon ever do to you?"

Till snatched the mangled spoon back from Ollie, sea-glass green eyes snapping with anger. "I am going to wrap this thing around Richard's neck if he doesn't have a good reason not to be here! I talked to him a few days ago, I think, and if he's locked himself up with some girl and forgot to call anyone, I am going to _kill_ him."

Ollie grabbed the spoon back and shoved a heavy cloth napkin into Till's hands, hiding the spoon under a napkin on the other table. "Wring that, not Richard's neck. Or that spoon. Look, if he doesn't call sooner or later, we'll go ahead with dinner then go 'round to his place afterwards."

Till was practicing knots on the cloth napkin and glaring at his mobile phone where it lay in the middle of the table. The rule between the band was at the beginning of any meal they had together, all mobile phones were put in the middle of the table and were not to be answered unless it was obvious that the call was a serious emergency. Whoever couldn't overcome the urge to grab the phone and fiddle with it had to pay the bill and so far, the only one to fall prey to the siren's call of their phone was Paul. "And it was a bloody sales call at that!" he'd yelled, handing over his credit card that evening and giving his fellow band members the evil eye as they sat around the table and laughed themselves sick at the disgruntled look on his face.

"You're going to set that thing on fire if you keep glaring at it, Till," a soft voice came from over his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Christoph, Flake and Paul coming across the room to the table. He and Ollie stood to pass hugs around and once everyone was seated and phones corralled, Flake asked, "Where's Richard?"

Till began to speak but Ollie grabbed up the knotted napkin and shoved it into Till's mouth. "We haven't heard from Reesh. I left him a message about a half hour ago and Till's left messages that go from 'Hey, where are you?' to "I am going to kill you slowly and painfully if you do not call me back right now.' Have any of you heard from him?"

Paul bit his lip and thought for a moment. "No. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I talked to Reesh. It's not more than a couple weeks ago at the most. I got an e-mail from him about the same time but other than that, not a peep. And that's unusual for him, especially with these rehearsals coming up."

"I haven't heard from him either," said Christoph. "I called to tell him that I was going to be doing a drum clinic sometime during the tour and management wanted to let him know that if he wanted to do a clinic, there was more than enough interest. And that was probably two weeks ago. I called him yesterday but his mobile phone went right to voice mail. Same with his home phone."

Flake made a " _hmph_ " noise as he listened to what the other band members were saying. Richard could play the rock diva as well as anyone but for him to be more than a few minutes late for anything was very, very unusual. That he hadn't contacted anyone in such a long time was even more puzzling as Richard was as bad as a teenage girl when it came to talking on the phone and e-mailing people. "And all of you say it's been about two weeks or so since you talked to Richard or had _any_ kind of contact with him?"

"The last thing I told Reesh was not to forget the three packages of strings he'd picked up for me in London," Paul said. And like I said, that was about two weeks ago. Has anyone talked to his family?"

"I haven't," Till murmured, reaching across the table and plucking his mobile out of the pile. "Let's suspend the no mobile phone rule for the moment, okay? I'm going to check my call log and my e-mail; maybe I missed something."

The rest of the band did the same and within ten minutes, were all staring at one another, faces white as snow, mobile phones forgotten either on the table or in their lap. Till took a deep breath and said, "The last time I heard from Reesh was _exactly_ two weeks ago. What about the rest of you? Has it been two weeks?"

Nods went around the table as eyes grew wider with the realization that something was very, very wrong. Ollie pushed his phone away with a finger, grabbed his glass of wine and downed half of it in one drink. Paul turned to quietly summon a waiter for five shots of vodka and another bottle of wine. Christoph was looking up at the chandelier, a tiny tremble beginning to rattle his slender frame. Flake and Till were staring at each other, identical expressions of shock on their faces. Till finally looked away, rubbing his chin with a hand that shook while Flake was polishing the lenses of his glasses with his shirt tail, looking anywhere but at his friends. He knew if he did and saw the bleakness in their eyes, he'd fall apart and probably never be able to put himself back together again.

"It's been two weeks," Paul whispered, thanking the waiter and accepting his glass of vodka. "Two bloody _weeks_. He's _never_ gone this long without calling me. Hell, the longest he's ever gone without talking to me was three days, and that was because he was pissed off at me over something dumb. Something horrible has happened to him, I just know it."

Till had finished his glass of wine and was staring at the little glass of vodka, trying to decide between another glass of wine or the vodka. He poured another glass of wine, then picked up the glass of vodka and threw the liquid to the back of his throat. Shuddering at the bite of the strong alcohol on his empty stomach, Till said, "This isn't like Richard at all. I have a message on my phone from about an hour ago; Khira Li called to ask me if I'd talked to him. She hasn't heard from him either."

Ollie was swirling the vodka in his glass around, staring at a place far above Christoph's head and thinking. He didn't want to voice what had been creeping through his mind ever since the others had said they hadn't heard from Richard for two weeks, but he had to. "We need to track him down. This...this is not good."

"Fuck...what if the press get wind of this?" Christoph said quietly. "Management is going to blow sky high if they do. I can hear it now, "How did you manage to misplace Richard? You have a tour coming up. This is a _stunt_ , right?""

"Then we won't let it get that far," Till said. "Let's eat dinner if we can. Don't we have a house rented for us to crash at between rehearsals so we don't run Richard's neighbors out of their houses if we were to stay with him?"

Paul nodded. "I haven't been there yet. Christoph and I flew in on the same plane; Flake, have you seen it?"

"I can honestly say we won't have to worry about anyone finding us, the GPS I had the cab driver using was the only way to find the place. It wasn't on his GPS and didn't show up on Google Earth either. And it's tiny. I mean... _tiny_. Paul, you might not have any trouble with going up and down the stairs without knocking your head on the door jamb but the rest of us are gonna have to learn how to duck or live with lumps on your skull," Flake said.

"I'll put a 'Max Headroom, 2 Meters' sign at the top of the basement stairs," Till said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Paul shot Till a mock-dirty look while Christoph and Ollie just rolled their eyes at their singer. "We'll set up our equipment and stay there rather than at a hotel or at Richard's. Kind of like we used to do things. Management won't care what we do just as long as they have an idea where we are. I'll call some of the crew and have them bring our personals over with the equipment we need to keep things looking as normal as we can. The house might be tiny but it's got everything you could want when it comes to Wi-Fi, all that," Flake said. "I'm going to assume everyone's got their laptops?"

"I just got a new one," Ollie said, hazel-green eyes shining in the soft, dim light. "Haven't had a chance to really work on it but it's top of the line. I splurged and got the military level encryption package and you supposedly can drop the thing out of a five story window and not bother it one bit. We can use it to keep anything safe that we don't want taking a wander and getting onto the Internet when we're not looking, if you get my drift."

The rest of the band confirmed that they had brought all of the electronic toys they traveled with; Christoph volunteered to get in contact with one of Richard's neighbors who had a key to his house to locate and overnight ship his laptop to the house while Till, Paul and Flake pulled together what they knew. Ollie said he would contact all the hospitals in their area as well as around Richard's house, and also speak with a few other people that lived nearby to see if they had seen or heard anything recently. Once the five men had their plan of action in place, they tried to eat dinner but none of them really had an appetite. The only thing anyone showed a passing interest in was dessert and only then to keep the wine they were drinking from knocking them stupid. With heavy hearts, the band wandered back to the front desk of the restaurant to pay the check and for Paul and Christoph to gather their bags that they had left at the front desk for safekeeping.

"Flake, since you already know where this place is, do you feel like driving?" Till asked. "I rented a SUV since I knew we wouldn't want to rely on anyone if we wanted to go out on our own. I tried to get something smaller but that was all the rental place had on the lot. I don't think I'm fit to walk across the street at the moment much less try to find a tiny house in the dark."

"Not a problem," Flake replied, folding himself into a chair and waiting for the valet to bring the vehicle around. As he waited, he watched his friends standing in a loose circle near the fireplace, trying to keep their expressions as bland as possible. It was a good thing no fans were nearby; no one had to turn on the charm when they felt like screaming. His stomach was in knots and he'd worried his lower lip till he could feel it wanting to bleed. Closing his eyes, Flake forced himself to think only of what needed to be done, and not why.

It was very late that night before the band members managed to wind down enough to try and sleep. Christoph had spoken to Richard's neighbor who looked after his house and learned that she hadn't seen him in two weeks. She had only noticed he was gone when one of the small group of local cats that he fed came to her door, meowing for breakfast. "He feeds the cats every morning he's here and their feeder was empty, not a speck of anything in it. It holds enough kibble for a couple days and Richard has me keep it topped up if he's going to be gone more than a day or so," the neighbor lady had told Christoph. "It's funny how they know when he's going to be here and when he's back in Germany; they go absolutely nuts right before he pulls his car into the driveway. They've been staying in his garden, meowing their heads off, looking for him everywhere. Poor things."

Christoph had managed to thank her, tell her how to get Richard's laptop to him, and hang up the phone before he had hysterics. He folded himself into a ball on the living room floor amongst his drum kit's flight cases and shook like a leaf while he rocked himself back and forth. Paul and Ollie had been at his side in a second, wrapping their arms around him and offering him all the comfort they could. Till sat down next to the trio, slowly, his face going blank with shock. Flake dropped his handful of cables and joined the rest of the band in their huddle, leaning his head against Till's back and breathing hard. For Richard to neglect the neighborhood cats he loved and that they were upset at his absence to the point that they were refusing to leave his garden told the band all they needed to know.

Early afternoon the next day saw the band sitting in the bright, cheery kitchen, hollow-eyed and unshaven. A pot of triple-strong coffee sat in the middle of the table along with another pot of black tea, along with a half-empty box of donuts. The tabletop was littered with scraps of paper, pencils, pens, and in the middle of it all sat the teaspoon that Till had mangled into an interesting shape.

Ollie was deep in thought as he nursed a cup of coffee and gazed at the rest of the band. Till, Flake and Paul were leaning back in their chairs, eyes closed and obviously too tired to sleep or keep their eyes open, while Christoph had pillowed his chin on his folded arms and was staring sightlessly at the teaspoon. Ollie had been the last to bed, getting only a couple hours of sleep before growing restless and getting back up. As he'd put together the coffee and tea, he'd mulled over the discoveries they'd made the night before coming up with the beginnings of an idea. Now all he needed to do was present it to the others and hope they would be able to function even if they were lost in grief.

Paul leaned over and rested his head on Christoph's shoulder with a sigh. He was unusually quiet, which was a bad sign in and of itself. He and Christoph were both dressed in heavy thermal undershirts with flannel shirts over the top, jeans and heavy socks, and they still shivered like saplings in the wind. Till was dressed the same, only he had wrapped a knitted afghan that had seen better days around his broad shoulders. Ollie's faded combat trousers looked as if a pack of wolves had been at them while he huddled into the hood of his faded blue hoodie, looking every inch the brooding rock star he wasn't feeling at the moment. Even Flake, who could be as picky about what he wore as Richard was, was wearing jeans that were almost a full size bigger than what he normally wore and one of Paul's thermal shirts over his own faded, washed out, grey t-shirt.

"I think I have an idea," Ollie said quietly, finally breaking the silence. It took a moment before the others were able to focus their attention on him and even then Ollie wasn't sure Christoph was completely aware of what was going on. Paul gently nudged the lanky drummer who blinked, looked around, and finally focused on Ollie.

"What is it?" Till murmured, starting to pour himself another cup of coffee and choosing the tea instead. He dropped a couple of sugar cubes into the black liquid and stirred it with a finger, ignoring the heat. Flake silently handed him the deconstructed teaspoon and for a second, Till stared at it, unsure if he was going to use it or not. He gently placed the spoon back on the table and said, "I'm going to give this to Reesh when we get him back."

Till's comment made everyone smile for a moment before the somber mood came crashing back down. Ollie closed out what he was working on and shut his laptop down, placing it on the nearest counter top. "Here's my idea. All of us got calls from Reesh two weeks ago. Same with the e-mail. Nobody's heard from him since then. His neighbor says he hadn't asked her to feed the cats like he normally does when he's here but is going to be away for more than a day or so, and I got in touch with one of the people who live across the street and they said they hadn't seen Richard's car outside of the garage in two weeks. What are we missing?" Ollie knew if he was able to get the others thinking about where else they might try to find out anything on Richard's whereabouts that they would most likely be better able to deal with the grief if worse came to worse. That way they wouldn't drown themselves in guilt, thinking that they could have done more to locate their errant band member and not doing it.

Paul was the first to answer. "There's a bakery, grocery, bookstore and a bar within walking distance of Richard's house," he said. "Oh, and there's also a fancy pet store that Reesh gets his cat food and treats from. No wonder the little beggars like to see him so much."

"Since we need to check Reesh's house anyway, why don't we split up and check each of those places, see if anyone's talked to or seen him recently?" Christoph asked.

"That will work but before we do anything else, I need to get at least two more hours of sleep or I'm gonna fall on my face," Flake muttered. "I'm so tired I'm numb from the eyebrows down."

"That's an excellent idea," Paul said, slowly pushing himself out of his chair and onto his feet, dragging Christoph up out of his chair. "C'mon Doomie, I'll tuck you into bed. You can even have my teddy bear." The lanky drummer said nothing, just took the back of Paul's shirt and let himself be led out of the kitchen and down to the tiny room he and Paul were sharing. Stopping long enough to kick his boots off, Christoph collapsed onto his bed, asleep before he hit the mattress. Paul dragged one of the blankets that was piled against the foot of the bed over Christoph, then staggered over to his bed, falling into its soft embrace with a sigh.

Back in the kitchen, the rest of the band were trying to put the kitchen to rights while running on caffeine fumes and nerves. Flake had washed and dried the coffee and teapots, while Till made the rounds of the little house, making sure the doors and windows were still locked tightly. Ollie had rounded up the last of the donuts and put them in the fridge, then turned back to the table to shove the papers and writing implements into a pile. When his hand landed on the spoon, which was lying on top of a battered copy of the set list written in Richard's spiky handwriting, all of his self-control snapped. He slammed his hand onto the tabletop, swearing mightily, then turned to press his forehead against the cool surface of the freezer door. The harsh sound brought Till running and Flake to drop the cloth he'd been using on the teapot. Ollie stared at them, tears beading at the edges of his hazel-green eyes, and slumped into his chair. Till sat down next to him and pulled Ollie against his shoulder, letting the younger man lean on him, while Flake sat down behind Till. He leaned over and pressed his forehead to Ollie's, knowing the younger man had reached the end of his iron self-control and any moment it would crack and shatter like glass.

And crack it did. Ollie burst into harsh sobs which he made no effort to muffle. Till hugged him harder, hoping that neither Paul nor Christoph could hear what was going on in the kitchen. Flake had his arms around the two of them as best he could, his own tears soaking into the back of Ollie's shirt. He leaned away and shoved his glasses up to the top of his head to keep them out of harm's way, then went back to trying to comfort Ollie and Till, who was on the razor's edge of cracking himself.

" _What the fuck are we doing?_ " Ollie yelled. "We're a fucking rock band, not Sherlock Holmes the last time I looked. We can't do this on our own."

"Speak for yourself," Flake intoned, deadpan. Ollie looked up, tried to laugh and managed a weak giggle. He blew his nose on a dish cloth Flake retrieved from the counter, wiped his eyes and settled his head back against Till's shoulder. Reaching back, he swatted Flake gently on the head, saying, "You're an asshole, you know that?"

"Yes but you love me," Flake replied, taking Ollie's hand and squeezing it. All three men snorted at each other's silliness, then Till said, "Seriously. We need to do this but at the same time it's nuts. We should be calling Management and letting them handle everything, let them deal with the authorities. The more I think that we should the more the feeling that we have to be the ones to find Reesh gets stronger. And I don't know why."

:::

If Till thought he'd spent a more frustrating day in his lifetime, he'd been proven wrong by the end of the day the five band members set out to figure out where Richard had gotten himself off to. A thorough going-over of Richard's house had produced nothing more than his luggage strewn all over his bedroom as was usual when he was in the middle of traveling. He'd only unpacked a little bit and there were several piles of clothes he had obviously been planning to pack along with what he'd brought from his house in Germany. There was nothing in the fridge, not even a rotting piece of fruit; the entire house was spotless. The only thing that showed Richard had been in the house at all was the large canister of cat treats that sat on the kitchen table. The lid was open and a bag of treats set inside but not opened. Asking around Richard's usual haunts had done nothing to solve the mystery of his disappearance. By the time the five men reached the little rental, all of them were headachy, frustrated and exhausted.

Till was sprawled out on the floor of the practice room, his roaring headache setting his head to throbbing. His shoulders felt like they had been strung with piano wire and his teeth ached where he had gritted them in an effort to keep from biting someone's head off. He had originally thought to crawl off to his room after the band had returned from their quest but the growing headache had driven him to the soundproofed room. He knew one more little noise would make his head explode, but he didn't have the strength to get up and head for his room to see if he'd had the foresight to pack any aspirin. He was just on the edge of sleep when the practice room door opened softly, spilling the dim light of the hallway into the room.

"Till?" Christoph's whispered in an almost-inaudible voice. "Got aspirin for your head. Don't get up, I'll sit them and the water bottle down next to you so you can take 'em when you're ready."

"No, hang on Schneider," Till groaned. He pulled himself up with a sharp hiss of pain, turning his back on the light. Christoph was quick to close the door, plunging the room into semi-darkness which was better for Till's headache, if not his ability to see where he was going. Fumbling around till he found a chair, he slumped into it, accepting the aspirin and bottle of water from Christoph with a mumbled thank you. The drummer pulled up another chair nearby, leaning on an amplifier to prop his own aching head up on folded arms.

"I feel like someone's been stirring my brain with a mace," Christoph sighed.

"Same here. And I swear if my back gets any tighter I'm going to scream," Till grumped, finishing the water and being very careful to place the water bottle in the recycling bin instead of flinging it and hoping it hit the bin. Even the soft "plunk" of the bottle falling over to tap against the plastic bin made Till wince.

"C'mere, let me work on your back," Christoph said. "My headache's getting better; yours isn't going to let up if your back is a wreck."

Till didn't need to be told twice. He scooted his chair closer to Christoph and turned his back to him, trying to arrange himself so he could lean on the amplifier that Christoph had been propping himself up against without making his back hurt any more than it already did. He sighed as the drummer's strong hands slid up his spine, seeking out the areas that were the hardest, the most tender. Christoph was very good at back rubs, instinctively knowing where the pain was and how hard to work the muscles and tendons. He hit a couple spots at the beginning that made Till hiss with pain; he insisted that Christoph continue even though it hurt.

"Jesus, Till, I could bounce a quarter off of your back, you're wound so tight!" Christoph exclaimed softly, closing his eyes and letting his fingers tell him what muscles were dangerously tight.

"Oh please for the love of God, don't," Till begged. "I can barely stand what you're doing right now."

"Hang on, let me go grab my lineament," Christoph said, backing away from Till and padding out the door. Till thought he'd had the market on different kinds of muscle lineament cornered, what with his back and knees not being what they had been when he was younger, but the drummer had him beat. Christoph carried at least five different types of liniments in varying strengths, from mild to what Paul described, "made from ghost peppers, rocket fuel, mace and a splash of nitroglycerine for a little kick." He didn't have as many aches and pains as Till did but the ones he had sometimes kept him up nights, so the collection of aromatic rubs kept him relatively comfortable.

"Pull your shirt off, Till," Christoph said, ghosting back into the room as quietly as he'd left. "This isn't the five alarm stuff, this is just the herbal stuff I gave your for Christmas last year."

 _"Ach,_ that stuff is wonderful," Till replied, voice muffled by the thick t-shirt. "What's in it? I know you told me but I've forgotten."

Christoph flipped the tube open and squeezed out a generous handful of the milky gel. Rubbing it in his palms to warm it, he said, "Arnica, that's the main ingredient. The base is aloe vera and glycerine, there's some spearmint in it and willow bark. Don't tense up, I'm gonna put it on your back right...now."

Till couldn't help the flinch; the gel was warm but not as warm as his skin. He bit back a yelp and forced his muscles to relax. Christoph worked the muscle gel into Till's back first, then went back to the massage, kneading the gel deep into muscles that twitched and tried to tighten up again. He said nothing, just tried a different technique to see if that worked. Finally, he could feel the least bit of tension loosening around the sides of Till's spine. It had been almost forty-five minutes since he'd started and Christoph was staring to tire but he wasn't going to stop now while he had the harp-wire tight muscles convinced to let go. He dug his knuckles into the lower part of Till's spine, holding the singer's right shoulder with the hand he wasn't using to press the stubborn muscles into obeying. It was like trying to punch a steer in the ribcage; Till still maintained a great deal of the muscles and strength he'd built up as a promising Olympic swimmer in his youth. Switching hands and shoulders, Christoph continued wrestling at Till's back, stopping only long enough to wipe his sweaty forehead against his shoulder.

Almost an hour later, Till sighed deeply and relaxed across the amp, his headache and backache gone at last and leaving exhaustion in their place. Christoph was in the bathroom, washing the lineament from his hands; when he came back in the room, he said, "Go to bed. Everyone else is asleep and I'm heading there myself."

Till stretched to his full height, palms touching the low ceiling. He looked over at Christoph who was shifting from foot to foot, fingers twitching as they did when he didn't have a drumstick to hand to fiddle with. Till gave his friend a long, long look, then took Christoph into a mint-scented hug. They stood there quietly, lost in their own thoughts, then Christoph gently pushed Till away. "I'll be okay," he sighed, turning and walking out of the room ahead of Till. Rather than head to bed right away, Till made his way to the kitchen to grab himself another bottle of water and an ice pack to drape over his eyes to chase the strain in his eyes away. He was on his way to the room he would have been sharing with Richard when Flake poked his head out of the room he was sharing with Ollie.

"Can't sleep?" Flake asked, stepping into the hallway and closing the door softly behind him. He slid down the wall until he was sitting cross-legged at Till's feet, gazing up at the singer myopically. Without his glasses and hair a fluffy cloud around his face, Flake looked more like a little kid than Paul did. Till joined him on the floor, their knees touching. "No, was just heading to bed. Christoph worked on my back for me, otherwise I'd be sleeping standing up."

"That's good. I was on my way to do just that when I ran into Christoph and he told me he'd take care of your back. Is it me, or was today one of the longest days you've ever lived through?" Flake asked.

"If it wasn't the longest it was the most frustrating. At least we know Richard's not in the hospital..."

" _Gott Sie Dank!"_

"...but I don't think we learned anything we didn't already know. Nobody's seen Richard in two weeks, nobody's got a clue where he's gone. This is just weird. Nobody vanishes off the face of the planet like he's done," Till sighed.

"Not voluntarily most of the time," Flake replied, snagging the water bottle Till held and taking a drink. Handing the bottle back, he continued, "The only place we didn't get anything from was the bar he likes to hang out at when he's over here, and that was because the manager wasn't in. I know he and Richard are friends, so he's had to have seen him. I left him my mobile's number and a note to call me with one of the servers. She said he hadn't seen him in a couple weeks, but she'd make sure he saw the note and have him call me as soon as possible. What time is it anyway?"

Till dug his mobile out of his jeans pocket and peered at the dimly-lit display. "Shit, it's only seven o'clock. When did we leave here?"

"Around one, I think. It takes about half an hour to get to Richard's place from here and we spent almost three hours wandering around up in his neighborhood. We stopped on the way back for dinner, then got here around five, maybe six. I don't think the guy who owns the bar is due in till around ten if he does come in," Flake replied.

"I'm going to bed," Till said, getting up and hauling Flake along with him. "I'm not giving that fucker of a headache another chance to come back and make me even more miserable. How's Ollie? I almost forgot to ask."

"He's all right for now. I think us taking our trip this afternoon helped, he's much better at working through tough things if he's moving. How do you think he got through the last of the sessions we did in Spain without killing everyone? I think he wore out two pairs of running shoes in a month. Things would get stressful, we'd hit a spot that wouldn't work musically, anything like that, and off he'd go. By the time we got done in Spain I figured he'd be ready to run the Boston Marathon," Flake replied with a small grin.

"Good," Till replied, pushing the door to his room open and propping his shoulder on the doorframe. "Let me know if the bar owner calls, okay? You might have to jump up and down on me to wake me up but please wake me up."

Flake promised that he would and went back into his room, softly closing the door behind him. Till stripped down to his underwear and crawled into bed, plopping the ice bag he held over his eyes once he was comfortable. He forced himself to relax, not wanting to undo all the work Christoph had done on his back as well as the relief the aspirin had given him. It took a few moments but soon Till was drifting into sleep, hoping that when he woke up the past couple of days would prove to be a bad dream.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a bad dream. The next thing Till knew he was staring up at the ceiling in his room, blinking sleep out of his eyes and trying to remember why he was sore all over. He began to sit up, slowly, peering at the bedside clock through bleary eyes. It read half past six; the last thing he remembered was looking at the clock before he fell asleep and seeing that it was just after seven.

"What the hell?" he wondered. A quick peek through the bedroom curtains showed him a bright, sunny day, which did not jive with what he remembered before he went to sleep. Flake had promised to wake him up if the bar owner that knew Richard had called; had he forgotten to wake him up? With a deep sigh, Till wandered down to the kitchen to be met with four pairs of eyes staring at him, all of them sharing the same stricken expression. He saw that the morning newspaper spread out on the table but from his angle couldn't quite read what was printed on the page.

"Sit...sit down, Till," Paul said, going to the singer's side and pushing him into a chair. Till looked up at Paul, then followed his pointing finger to see the front page. Till picked up the paper, carefully, and read the article that someone had circled in red pencil.

"Fuck," he hissed, dropping the paper back to the table. The air in the kitchen began to feel dangerously close and electric, a definite sign that Till was winding up to pitch a huge fit even though outwardly he looked thoughtful and quiet. The rest of the band exploded away from the table, hoping to give the singer enough room so that when he did explode in rage, none of them would be in his sights. They'd all been recipients of that rage before and none of them wanted to have it happen again, especially right now.

Silence reigned for a couple moments, in which the others gradually returned to their spots around the kitchen table, ever wary that one little wrong move would set Till off. His rage had faded quickly, leaving only bone-deep exhaustion and bottomless sadness. Flake reached out and touched the big man's shoulder, then found himself snatched up in a bear hug that made his ribs creak. Christoph flung himself at Till and Flake, dragging Ollie and Paul with him so they could pile onto Till and try to comfort him as he cried himself sick.

The headlines of the morning's paper stood out starkly from the white paper, the news printed in jet black ink, bold type, and below that the picture of a friendly-looking man smiling slightly at the camera. He was leaning on a lamp post with a sign over his left shoulder, and just out of frame you could see the back of Richard's head.

 **"OWNER OF POPULAR WATERING HOLE THE RED SHOE FOUND DEAD AT FOUR SQUARE LANE,"** the headline screamed.

 


	4. The Great Below

The Great Below

“ _Though my soul may fall in darkness,_

_It will rise in perfect light,_

_I have loved the stars too fondly,_

_To be fearful of the night.”_ -Sarah Williams

_::_

_I was drifting on a wave of warm, sea-glass colored water. Nothing hurt, I was completely at peace. For the first time in forever, I didn’t feel like I was going to come apart at the seams if I moved. I didn’t know who I was, where I was and I honestly didn’t care._

“Reesh?”

_Who?_

“Richard. Wake up.”

_Is that my name? Where am I?_

“Come on sweetie, wake up for me.”

_I know that voice. Something to do with a flower?_

“Richard Zven Kruspe, if you do not open your eyes this second, I am going to _pry_ your eyes open and duct tape them open. I know you can hear me.”

_Lilly! I know who she is and yes that’s my name but . . . shit. I know where I am._

I cracked my eyes open and found myself looking into Lilly’s very blue eyes. She looked annoyed at me but when I smiled up at her, she laughed softly and said, “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. I take it we’re still guests of the good doctor?” I replied, my voice a hoarse croak. I wrangled myself up into a sitting position and the second I was up, Lilly hugged me as hard as she could. I hugged her back, never so happy to see another person in my whole life, even if I’d only known her a short time. She smelled so wonderful; a mix of spices, something floral and citrus along with an undercurrent of a scent that I knew but couldn’t put my finger on. Her hair was damp, combed back from her face and was almost black from the moisture. She handed me a bottle of water and I drank half of it down in one swallow. I had to force myself not to drink it all at once; the water was cold and I was dry as a bone. Experience told me that if I gulped the entire bottle down at once, it would come back up again just as fast.

“Unfortunately yes, we’re still here. How are you feeling?” Lilly asked.

“Sore. Been worse. You doing okay? How long was I out?”

“I’m all right. I didn’t want to leave you alone but I really needed to clean up before I died of my own stink. You’ve been out a couple hours, three at the most. _He_ panicked when you stopped breathing, so you might have a bite mark on your lip where I was giving you mouth to mouth,” Lilly said. Sure enough, I touched my lower lip and felt the slightly ragged edges of a bite mark.

“I stopped breathing?” I said, then a deep, sharp ache over my sternum demanded my attention. Looking down I saw a bruise that was as big as both of my hands held side by side. Poking at it made me hiss; Lilly swatted my fingers away and said “Stop that. It’ll hurt worse if you keep poking at it.”

“What the _fuck_ did you do to me?” I stammered. “What did you hit me with? A sledgehammer?”

“I had to punch you in the chest when your heart stopped beating. It was the only thing I could think of and Neal wasn’t being any help. He was standing in a corner screaming about losing a valuable test subject, so I thought ‘what would it hurt?’ Obviously, it worked.”

“Christ on a rock! I’ve been punched in the chest by Till having hysterics and it didn’t leave that kind of mark!” I snapped.

“Don’t get pissy with me, _Richard_. I had a really good punch before Neal shot me up with his virus. I expect I could punch out a raging bull out now if I needed to,” Lilly growled. I pulled away from her, suddenly afraid. Lilly had said when the virus began its work on her that her hearing, night vision and sense of smell had improved; it wouldn’t surprise me if making her stronger wasn’t part of what the virus could do. As I sat there wondering if I should run or sit as still as I possibly could so as not to irritate her further, the light in the cell seemed to get brighter and I thought I could hear and smell the mice creeping through the ventilation shaft overhead.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh _fuck_. I’m infected!” I yelled, my voice skittering up half an octave as the realization came over me that the pain in the back of my neck I’d been dreaming was a bee stinging me had been from the insane doctor shoving a 10 gauge needle into my jugular vein. I ran my tongue over my teeth and yes, my canines were sharper and felt funny when I poked them with a finger. I backed away from Lilly, more afraid than ever of her sharp teeth and black nails…and of what I might do to her if something else virus-induced showed up and made me attack her. She huffed angrily at me, got up and stalked away, her irritation at me written in every bit of her stance. When she turned back to face me, she said in a voice almost too soft to be heard, “I didn’t want to save you. I wanted to let you go so you wouldn’t wake up to . . . this. I couldn’t stop myself. I saw you turning blue, felt your heart stop and all those years of nursing training just took over.”

I got up and went to her, sliding an arm around her shoulders and hugging her gently. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m an asshole.”

“No, you’re not an asshole. Well, right _now_ you’re not,” Lilly replied, leaning her head against my arm. I had to laugh at how dry her tone was, it rivaled Flake at his driest. She looked up at me, those unbelievably blue eyes shining . . . and I was lost. Lost in her eyes, that mischievous smile, and the strength she had even though she’d been beaten, raped, and shot full of a virus that was turning her into something not human. She was so much stronger than I could ever think of being and if Lilly was the last person I’d ever see, I’d go to my end with all of those wonderful things locked away in my soul. I didn’t want to die; I wanted out of that hellhole and I was taking her with me no matter what.

I reached up and stroked her cheek, hoping my guitar-string calloused fingers wouldn’t irritate her skin. She leaned into my touch, rubbing her face on my fingers like a cat. Every bit of me went on full alert as we stood there, staring at each other like idiots. My mouth went dry, my brain locked up, and every rational thought I had took off on vacation. Lilly stared up at me, obviously as dumb-struck and off kilter as I was. While the feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, it startled me. I hadn’t felt that way about a woman for quite a while, then to have that feeling hit me while I was locked in a cell, the victim of a mad scientist who wanted to use me as a guinea pig, was just _so_ fucked up. _Nine kinds of fucked up_ , as Ollie would say. “Is this part of what the virus does to you?” I asked. “And I thought I was already irresistible.”

“I don’t think so. At least I didn’t wake up so.... where I couldn’t stand myself. But even if it did, it wouldn’t matter,” Lilly said with a sigh. “You’ve always made me want to howl and drag my ass on the carpet.”

That did it. I sank to my knees, laughing till tears ran down my face. Lilly stood next to me the whole time, a bemused look on her face. Every time I looked up at her and tried to stop laughing, she would raise an eyebrow and say in that drier than desert sand voice, “Awoo.” Eventually, I managed to get myself under control and stood back up, taking her hands and kissing them. “I’ve never had anyone say that to me. Ever. And I’ve been propositioned in some very _unique_ ways.”

“I’m sure you have. And by prettier women than me,” Lilly said, turning away so I wouldn’t see her sad expression. “Are you _serious?_ You’re lovely. And even if you hadn’t saved my life and defended me, I’d still think you were gorgeous!” I said, gently shaking her hands to get her attention on me and not look away. “I just wish we’d met under different circumstances.”

“Yeah, me too,” Lilly said. “Other than the bruise, you feeling all right?” I could tell she was growing more and more uneasy with the sudden arousal that flared between us and was wanting to change the subject and fast.

“My teeth feel funny,” I said, reaching up to poke one of the canines that felt the weirdest. It seemed as if it would move in the socket easily and when I gave it a good, hard jerk, it popped loose and fell into my hand. I yelped and dropped the tooth, feeling something hard and sharp slide into the empty space. Touching the new tooth with the tip of my tongue, I could feel how sharp it was and immediately cut my tongue on it. I knelt down to pick up the tooth I’d lost and turned it over in my palm. It was obviously one of my adult teeth, but rubbing the edges carefully told me that the tooth had begun to change in shape and become sharper before it fell out and was replaced by the....fang?...that was there now. Figuring that I’d rather find out if my other canine was going to fall out now rather than wait, I poked the tooth and it came out without a problem. The new tooth slipped into its spot and like its twin, was sharp. The tooth I’d just pulled out showed the same signs of change as the first tooth.

“Mine didn’t fall out,” Lilly said, taking the shed teeth from my hand and examining them carefully. “Your new teeth look sharper than human teeth look usually but unless you examine them up close, you can’t tell they’re fangs. I don’t think they slide up into your mouth like mine do either.”

“No, I think they’re stuck in one spot. I wonder why your teeth move and mine don’t?” I asked, taking one of the teeth back and looking it over. Holding it out, I said, “I had a filling in this one and it’s gone.” I ran my fingers over the rest of my teeth, looking for the ones that had dental work done on them at one time or another and they were absolutely perfect. No fillings, no chipped places. Even the chipped tooth I’d had in the back of my mouth for ages was complete.

“I’ve been thinking about what’s in that virus cocktail you were injected with. I think Neal gave you a different strain than what I have. I didn’t stop breathing, my heart didn’t stop when the virus got into my system. I was awake through the whole thing, except at the very end when I passed out from hurting so bad. You did,” Lilly said, wandering over to the mattresses and sitting back down. I joined her, wondering what other surprises were in store for me. “I don’t think that all the changes the virus is going to do to you are done either,” she continued. “Have you noticed anything else, better hearing, vision, any of what I have?”

“Yeah. I think I can hear mice running through the ventilation system, for one. Everything looks brighter too. Not like that improves the look of this place,” I replied. “Did your sense of smell improve a lot? ‘Cause I hate to tell our lovely host this, but he _stinks_. I mean, all the deodorant in the universe won’t cover up whatever is making that funk. And he needs to get some mouse traps because their pee stinks even worse than he does.”

Lilly’s eyes grew solemn. “What else do you smell?” she asked, voice shaking. I could smell something new that overlaid the spice/flower/citrus scent her flesh gave off and it wasn’t that scent that had no name but was a memory. It was sharp, metallic, and “smelled” cold. I thought about it for a moment then said, “Fear. You’re terrified. It...you...smells...cold? Yeah, it smells like what you think fear would smell like. Cold, metallic, sharp.”

“Nothing else?”

“There’s something else there but I can’t put a name to it. Mostly I smell whatever you washed with, there’s a tang of that nasty stuff hospitals use to clean with, that stench that I told you about and I can smell fresh dirt. That’s it,” I said. Lilly relaxed and the fear smell faded away, leaving the perfumes and nothing else. “What’s wrong?” I asked her. “Am I missing something?”

“You know people can’t smell blood till it’s exposed to air for a moment, do you?” she said, fiddling with the edge of one of the blankets. “Only animals can smell it while it’s still inside you. All those books that claim the scent of blood makes someone sick? Nope. Maybe the sight of it but the smell inside the vein or fresh out of it? Nope. Unless you have a nose like a bloodhound.”

“What...what does blood smell like to you?” My active imagination was on overdrive and I wasn’t happy with what it was trying to show me. Neither was my stomach, which had been twitchy all day.

Lilly wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and huddled into it, sealing herself away from me. “It’s...it smells so strong and heavy it makes you queasy. Think of your absolute, favorite food and how it smells. Then imagine being able to sense it on your skin, breathe it in like air, touch it. The scent fills you up like water pouring into a glass, gives you a high like nothing you’ve ever felt but at the same time, it’s too much to stand. The blood-scent makes me think of the perfume that comes from some poisonous jungle flower. It just overwhelms me but since the taste of blood makes me sick, I think you’re safe for now.”

“So this virus will make me into a vampire,” I sighed. “Wonderful. If I have anything to say about it, I’m not _sparkling_. Vampires, in my not very humble opinion, should _not_ sparkle. Vampires are scary, apex predators, creatures of the night. Not the fucking Tooth Fairy. Only the Tooth Fairy should sparkle.”

Lilly snort-laughed at my comment as she began to braid her hair away from her face. “No, I don’t think you’re turning into a vampire, sparkly or otherwise. If you’re reacting to the virus like I have as far as blood goes, you’ll be able to smell it but you won’t be able to keep it down. Neal thought I would when my fangs came in but every time he’s forced me to drink it, I throw it up. I had blood on my face when you first woke up because he told me if I didn’t drink the glass of blood he had, he'd beat me until I did. The blood stayed down a minute but that was it. So don’t worry, I’m not going to start snacking on your neck. Lovely neck it is, but nope, it’s safe. What little blood stayed down made me not want to drink any more, though. Even if the bastard tries to force it down my throat.”

“That’s good. I don’t feel like giving up my irrational love for cherries,” I said with a laugh.

“Oh that’s right, I remember Schneider and the chocolate covered cherries in the “Mein Teil” video,” Lilly snorted. “Does he really hate them that much? He looked like he was going to throw up any second.”

“Yeah, at least chocolate covered ones. The director made him do five takes and by the third one he was ready to puke. That’s the take that’s in the video. I was sitting watching the playback a couple days later and screaming ‘Don’t give him the cherries, give them to me!’ Poor Schneider. I don’t think he could bear anything chocolate or cherry scented for a month afterwards.” I replied. “ Ollie was there after Schneider got done with that take and said he brushed his teeth for a half hour afterwards, swearing a blue streak the whole time.”

“Schneider does make a good looking woman, though. At least he wasn’t in ballerina slippers,” Lilly said. “Was that the director’s way of getting back at Flake for something? Because he does _not_ look happy in them. He looks like a drunken giraffe trying to dance _en pointe_.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Flake and the director were either at each other’s throats the whole time we worked on that video. I guess being told it was either the ballerina shoes or be the angel giving Till a blowjob that did it. I don’t remember whose bit was filmed first but I do remember we weren’t told what we’d be doing till that day and no one was allowed on set except the director and crew. We didn’t see anyone’s bit till after it was done. Of course after the last take of the entire video, Flake was up on his tiptoes like he’d done ballet all his life and going ‘round the set like some demented ballerina. We tried to get Schneider into them but his feet were too wide.”

With that comment, I was off, telling Lilly stories about our misadventures on various videos. Some of the stories were only funny now that time had passed but most of them were still hysterically funny. From those stories I began telling her about life in the band, our tours, anything I could think of. I didn’t want to think what kind of changes were going on inside me that might be on their way into turning me into a monster.

::

Once a “day,” a huge panel at the bottom of the door to our prison would open up and a metal box would be shoved in. Inside was a couple dozen bottles of water, another couple of sport drinks and juices, and one large container of either chicken or beef broth. Once in a while there would be protein bars but our jailer kept us on a liquid diet for the most part. I didn’t mind because ever since my new teeth had come in, my upper jaw ached and chewing anything was out of the question. I was nauseated off and on but never enough to bring anything up. I didn’t feel like eating but after Lilly pinched my nose shut and poured a cup of broth down my throat, I changed my attitude very fast. Most of the time I was curled up in the blankets near Lilly, either drowsing or completely asleep. Sometimes I’d fall asleep with my head against her shoulder and when I woke up, she’d be curled around me, close enough for me to feel her body heat but not quite touching.

Things had changed between Lilly and me after I woke up from my virus-induced blackout. There was definite interest between us but her control over her trauma of being repeatedly raped was failing. I had no problem with running around naked as the day I was born but it was obviously upset Lilly, so I kept one of the big bath towels around my waist while she wrapped one around herself, leaving her arms bare. We’d stopped sharing blankets after I’d woken up and found Lilly huddled in a corner, crying silently and shaking. I tried to speak to her but she wouldn’t hear me and when I looked down, I realized I had an erection and had probably poked her with it, bringing back every memory of what the evil man upstairs had put her through. It took forever to get her to calm down since she wouldn’t let me touch her and after that I’d suggested we curl up in our own blankets so I wouldn’t do anything to upset her. I could tell she was relieved even if she didn’t show it. She’d curl up close to me or let me hold the tips of her fingers; I knew it took a lot of courage for her to be able to do even those little things. Even I could see her mental barriers against all she’d gone through fraying around the seams and had no idea what to do, how to help.

As our time in captivity continued, we told each other about our lives. Lilly spoke three languages fluently—French, Italian and of course, German—plus she could read Russian but wasn’t very fluent in it. She loved to play ice hockey, was a voracious reader and loved old school arcade games. She liked almost all kinds of music save opera and what she called “new school country and rap.” She didn’t have any pets at the moment but had been wanting a couple of guinea pigs for some time. She’d wanted to be a nurse since she was small and before she’d been laid off from the hospital she had worked at for so long, had considered going back to school to work towards a psychiatric or orthopedic nursing degree. She had been adopted by her mother’s sister and her husband when her parents died in a car accident when she was four and was an only child. All in all, a rather normal life. Nothing like mine at all.

“What was it like growing up in East Germany right before the Wall came down?” she asked me as we were picking through the latest metal box of stuff Neal had shoved into our cell. “That was something I’d always wanted to talk to someone from East Germany about. I knew several people who were from West Germany when I was in college but I never met anyone from East Germany.”

“It wasn’t easy,” I said. “You were always watching over your shoulder, being careful what you said, who you talked to, what you were seen reading. It wasn’t quite as bad as George Orwell’s “1984" but life in East Germany when I was growing up was pretty damn close. And having freedom so close you could almost touch it...it was worth risking everything, even your life, to get away from the oppression, the constant fear, all of that crap people like me—well, all of us in Rammstein—will carry for the rest of their lives.”

Lilly yawned hugely, then said. “Was it hard getting used to things when Germany reunified?”

“Oh yeah, it was. No one realized how big a thing the reunification was at first but a couple years later, I think it finally hit people how big of a change we’d gone through in such a short time. You want to talk about culture shock? We went to bed in a Germany that had a barbwire fence down the middle of it with armed guards in towers with orders to shoot on sight all over it all of our lives and woke up the next day to all that being torn down? It knocked so many people off kilter. Didn’t matter how old you were, how much money you had, how much education, some people just weren’t able to wrap their heads around the Wall coming down and all the things that went with it. If you ever get Flake a little drunk and wound up, he’s the perfect example of someone our age who hasn’t quite gotten his head around there being a unified Germany even now. He doesn’t _hate_ it, it just...well, it’s an irritant to him. It was confusing as fuck then and it’s still confusing how many years later?” I replied. “Never thought I’d see it happen in my lifetime, you know?”

Lilly nodded, then lay down on her half of the mattress pile. I could sense something was bothering her but couldn’t put my finger on it. Her scent had been changing recently; the metallic, “cold” scent of fear slowly drowning out every scent but the spice. She was sleeping more, waking only long enough to go to the bathroom, shower and eat a little bit. When she was asleep, she twitched and shook in her nightmares. I’d woken her up once and wasn’t going to make that mistake again; she’d come out of the nightmare kicking and screaming. Literally. I’d managed to jump away from her but wasn’t quite quick enough and was still sporting a black eye and shallow cuts across the palms of my hands. She’d cried off and on for hours afterward and it was one of the few times she had let me hold her more than a few moments. She’d slept in my arms for a couple times afterward but the wall was back between us after that. I didn’t blame her. I knew if I’d lived through what she had, I’d lost my mind long ago.

“Lilly, is something bothering you? If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine...” I began

“I can hear your thoughts, Reesh.”

I stopped fussing with the water bottles and sat down across from her. “That...that’s new,” I stammered. “How long has this been going on?”

“Not too long. At first I thought I was imagining things but last night I could hear everything you were thinking and dreaming about as clear as day,” Lilly said. “So I started thinking of having a copper wire filter around my brain that keeps out stuff I don’t want to hear or know, and so far it works. Of course the first thing I heard was _his_ thoughts and I was oh so glad that yours were much nicer.”

I blinked, stared down at my hands and was at a loss for words. I’d had hints of something like that in the past, especially when Rammstein played live or we were deep in rehearsals but could it be telepathy or just being so in tune with other people? “Am I going to develop whatever it is too?” I asked.

“Yes. I can tell but don’t ask me how. It’s more a feeling. Like if I could put my hand on your brain, I could feel where it’s coming from under my fingers,” Lilly said. “And it won’t be just my thoughts you’ll be able to hear. It’ll be _every_ living thing on the planet’s thoughts. Good thing I read a lot of fantasy books that deal with telepaths, I’d never have thought of that filter around the brain thing on my own. I’d have gone insane in minutes.”

This was more than I could handle. Groaning, I curled up into a ball and seriously considered going mad. What I—we—were going through wasn’t real! This was all a bad dream, something I’d read in a story and my subconsciousness was having a field day with. I tried to tell myself that over and over, and it didn’t work. I rocked back and forth slowly, chewing my knuckles and trying hard not to bite them open with my sharp little fangs.

“Richard, stop it!” Lilly snapped, striking me on the shoulder with the flat of one of her hands. “Get a grip on yourself! I don’t have much strength to keep you and the rest of the world out of my head at the moment! ”

“Fuck you woman!” I yelled, standing up and shoving her away. “I didn’t ask for any of this shit! I’m sorry I can’t suddenly become your knight in shining armor or whatever the hell you want me to be! I’m as scared as you are!”

Lilly reared back and slapped me across the face, hard. I rocked back on my heels, stumbling back several steps before I ran into the wall. I raised a hand to my face and felt the heat of a bruise forming under my fingers. Rage ran scarlet before my eyes; every instinct I had to haul off and return the slap fought with stepping away and letting both of us cool off. I curled my fingers into my palms and hissed when my still short, but now quite sharp nails cut holes in the skin. I swore, raised my hand to wipe the blood off on the wall, and the scent that I’d noticed coming from Lilly was on my skin, in my blood. I could smell cedarwood, pine and a hint of mint in my own blood, but the scent we shared was heavy, primal and arousing. It was like every good smell in the world in one topped with musk mixed with vanilla. Without even wondering how the hell I knew, I stammered. “You’re in heat.”

Lilly advanced on me, murder and lust in her eyes as she backed me into a corner. She stopped a hand’s-breadth away from me, panting, and whimpered, “We’re _both_ in heat. The virus isn’t causing it. That bastard’s shot us up with some kind of aphrodisiac when we’ve been asleep or he’s put it in the water.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked, slowly edging around the wall and trying to keep enough distance between Lilly and I in case I had to run. “I’m not about to fuck you up against the wall just to give that asshole a free show! Especially since...I _can’t,_ Lilly. I’d throw you down on that bed in a heartbeat and make you scream for days but not after what he did to you. I won’t do it! And I’m sorry I can’t fix any of this.”

Lilly looked me in the eyes, let her hands drop, and whispered, “Thank you, lovey.” With that, she dashed for the bathroom, leaving me plastered against the wall with the worst case of blue balls I’d ever experienced. I heard the water in the shower begin to patter on the shower stall walls, then her yelp “Fucking hell, that’s cold!” followed by her yelling the lyrics to “Du Hast” at the top of her lungs, probably in an attempt to distract herself from the past several moments. I sat there and marveled at the fact that for someone who wasn’t a native speaker of German, she got all of Till’s vocal idiosyncrasies down pat.

“Save some cold water for me, I’m gonna need it,” I muttered. I sat down in the corner, pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head against the wall. Lilly came out of the bathroom not long after and was nice enough to not look my way when I shot up from the floor and ran for the hoped-for relief of cold water in my face and on other bits of me.

::

We were able to keep ourselves civilized for a couple “days” when all hell broke loose. I’d dragged myself into the shower for the _nth_ time to drown myself in an attempt to kill my arousal, when I started hearing voices. It wasn’t gradual, it was all at once, like turning a radio on full blast in a quiet room. The first “voice” I heard and felt was our captor's, and what I heard had me scrambling to throw up in the toilet, then sit on the floor and scream. Lilly came at a run, got me on my feet and back to my side of the bed. I went to my knees, clutching my head, terrified, and only with her talking me through my telepathy waking up was I able to accept this new talent and not go insane from the sudden waterfall of voices/feelings/sensations that came crashing down on me.

The first thing I felt in the middle of the madness was the warm solidity of Lilly’s mind; I clung to her as she “showed” me how to wrap my mind in the copper mesh net that kept everything out that I didn’t want to experience. She somehow convinced my brain to accept the things she knew about keeping the psychic noise out without argument and also to keep my psychic “nose” out of things that I didn’t need to be poking around in. I’d have gone rummaging around in people’s heads if she hadn’t because next to Paul, I’m the nosiest person around. Whatever she did, the thought of doing such made me feel like someone had smacked me on the nose with a newspaper. I tried to peek when I thought she wasn’t looking just once and had backed away, rubbing my nose even though Lilly was across the room with her back to me. “Bad rock star,” she giggled, looking over her shoulder at me. The humor helped a little; I was struggling so hard to understand everything she was trying to tell me and my rational self wasn’t having any of it.

I was still hanging onto her like a limpet on a rock when my brain suddenly got with the program and cooperated, the noises that deafened me faded into nothing at last. I’d cried and screamed myself hoarse and now I was wrapped in my blankets on my side of the bed, shaking, cold inside and out, and just...lost. Utterly lost and more than ready to give up and let Doctor Crazy-Pants stick me full of whatever virus or drug he’d created just as long as I’d be able to sleep through it. Or never wake up again. I’d been through several serious bouts of blackest depression in the past, but nothing like _this_. Thoughts of what I’d considered doing to myself back then came roaring back loud and fierce, then tearing through the grief came Lilly’s beautiful voice whispering into my head, _**:Come here, Reesh:**_ _**You don’t need to be alone right now. I won’t let the sadness eat you alive. I’m here, I’ll keep the dark away from you:**_

I reached out my hand, took hers and lay down in her arms, my head against her chest. _**:You don’t have to do this, sweetheart. I’ll be all right:**_

_**:Now that you know what I went through, I’m okay. You’d never do anything intentional to hurt me and you...you**_ _ **understand**_ **:** she replied, pushing my hair out of my eyes. I gazed up into her face, watched the dim lights shining in her hair and in her eyes. We cuddled together awhile and I was slowly falling to sleep when...

_**:Reesh?:** _

_**:Yes?:** _

_**:I...let’s...please...I want you:** _

I didn’t have to be asked twice. I kissed Lilly slowly, carefully, praying to a god I wasn’t sure existed to not let me do anything that would spoil the moment between us, not bring her memories of being brutally raped her crashing back and give me the strength to make every second we made love as perfect for her as I could. She pounced on me, purring and laughing, her hands wandering everywhere with her rosebud lips following. I gave up control and let her do whatever she wanted, and by the time I was begging Lilly to stop, to pull away before we did something she wasn’t ready for, Lilly pushed me on my back and settled herself above me. We didn’t need words, just gestures and the linkage that had grown between our minds. Sheathed inside her, I screamed her name to the sky, begged for release, for her to use me to heal her broken soul even if it meant she would hurt me, break me, bleed me dry. I would do anything and more just to put her back together again. I didn’t give a damn about myself.

I bled for her and she did for me; right before she came, she leaned over, grabbed my right arm and sunk her teeth into the tender inside of my arm, right over the big veins. She licked the blood that came up away with a rough tongue like a cat’s, offering me her left arm in return. I bit down, feeling her inner walls clamp down hard as steel around me, licked away a tiny spot of blood that showed up on her pale skin and lost myself in her moment of sheer bliss. When it was my turn, I came so hard I blacked out for a second. When I came around, I looked up at Lilly, who was wiping tears off of her face, and for the first time since I’d woken in this prison cell, felt something like hope blooming inside.

We made love two more times before we agreed that we were going to wear ourselves to bits if we kept up what we were doing. By the time we were cleaned up and ready for sleep, we were both sore, bruised and... _very_ satisfied. Lilly spooned around me, fingers tangled in mine, her skin warm and soft. I laid awake for a while after she’d fallen asleep, wondering if the rest of the band were looking for me, if anyone was looking for Lilly, or if they’d given up.

**_Till? Ollie? Schneider? Flake? Paul? Könnt ihr mich hören?_ **

**_Anyone?_ **

 

 


	5. Vengeance Is Mine [Reprise]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescue...or capture?
> 
> THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. None of this ever happened. It is for entertainment purposes only, no money is made from this work. All rights are reserved.

_Vengeance Is Mine [Reprise]_

_"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."-Ezekiel 25:18_

_::_

Nightfall wrapped itself around the little house the remaining five members of Rammstein were staying in. None of them actually noticed, for the news from that morning had left them lost and grieving. They'd separated from their huddle and gone to their rooms after the initial shock of finding out from the morning paper that their last hope in anyone knowing where Richard had gotten off to was lost. The owner of the Red Shoe had been found dead in a dumpster a block over from the bar and from the way the body looked, he hadn't gone without a fight. The obvious cause of death was the crater in the middle of his chest from a bullet; as if that hadn't done the job, whoever had murdered the man had slashed his throat and shoved a piece of rebar through one eye. The police had no leads and were asking if anyone had information that might help them at least have a starting point to come forward.

Flake was stretched across his bed, staring at the ceiling and watching the dying sunlight creep across the room. He thought of all the times he and Richard had fought, all the times they'd spent in the studio, all the good times and bad. With a heavy sigh, rearranged his lanky frame on the bed, one hand shoved under the pillows and the other aimlessly running through finger exercises. A spark of light caught his eye and when Flake figured out where it had come from, his breath caught in his throat. Richard had given him a silver and copper bracelet for his birthday and he had forgotten he had it on. It was made of thin strands of silver wire with tiny copper beads spaced along the wire. It wasn't an elaborate design; it reminded Flake of a model of a far-away solar system. He turned his hand from side to side, watching the sunlight slide along the silver wire and skim around the copper beads. The memory of Richard handing him the simply wrapped box at the birthday party the band had thrown for him came back to him and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying. He didn't want to tarnish such a wonderful memory with sadness, but it was so hard...

:::

_"Happy birthday Doktor Lorentz!" Richard yelled across the crowded room. Flake had been contemplating which of the three birthday cakes he wanted to cut into first when he heard Richard call his name. Looking up, he gestured with the cake knife he was holding and said, "Come over here and help me pick out which cake to start on , you shameless barbarian! When did you get back from the States? I didn't think you were going to be able to make it."_

_Richard grabbed his fellow bandmate in a big hug, lifting Flake half off his feet. "I came right from the airport. No way was I going to miss your birthday, Flake! I had a couple of hairy moments with my connecting flight but that's that, and here I am. Why're you calling me a barbarian?"_

_Flake grinned at Richard, poking him in the ribs with the handle of the cake knife. "You heard there was going to be three kinds of birthday cake, don't lie to me. You're just here for the cake and I'm going to call you a barbarian because it's my bloody birthday and I've missed you a lot. And I know how you are about cake."_

_Richard snort-laughed and handed Flake a box about the size of an older model cell phone, wrapped in silver paper with a simple strand of royal blue ribbon around the box. "I found this in London last month at a street fair I wandered into. It took me forever to finally figure out what to get you but when I saw this, I knew it was the perfect present. It reminded me of you. Happy birthday from your favorite barbarian!"_

_Flake carefully opened the package, setting the wrapping aside on the table behind him. Inside the box on a cushion of cotton wool was a bracelet made of thin strands of sterling silver wire with copper beads roughly the size of peas strung randomly along the wire. When Flake looked closer at the beads, he could see that what he thought were flaws in the metal to be tiny designs carved into the copper. The clasp was made of some kind of elastic metal-type material and slid smoothly over his fingers, leaving nothing to catch on clothes or skin. He slipped the bracelet on, delighted by how it looked and felt against his wrist._

_"Richard, this is...this is gorgeous!" Flake said, running his long, sensitive fingers over the wire and beads. "The amount of time and skill the person that made this, it must have taken them forever. Thank you so much!" He flung his arms around Richard's neck and squeezed till Richard laughed and wiggled free. "I know you're not big on jewelry, but I just couldn't resist it," Richard said, lifting his friend's hand up to admire his present. "Besides, Paul and Ollie already gave you my first idea for a present. That's what I get for telling them what I'd planned to get you, the sneaky bastards!"_

_Flake laughed, remembering how Paul and Ollie had fairly vibrated with suppressed glee as he'd opened the heavy box that the two of them had dragged into his living room the day before and dug through the thick layers of tissue paper, pulling out several volumes of piano scores by a couple of obscure composers that he'd mentioned in passing. He'd been unsuccessful finding the scores on his own, even spending hours on Amazon.com and several other sites that he assumed would have them. Neither Oillie nor Paul would tell him (or anyone else) how they'd found the music. Flake had sat down, stunned, the first of the nine, college textbook-sized volumes in his hand. The books weren't quite antiques but still required gentle handling, the wonderful scent of an old book, pages made from heavy, handcrafted paper and hand-bound with leather one of the best perfumes Flake had ever smelled._

_"I'm going to go grab a drink and I'll be back," Richard said, pulling Flake out of his reverie. "My pick, cake-wise, is the middle one."_

_"You're only saying that because it has cherries all over the top!"_

_"You know me far too well. Don't move, I'll be right back."_

_The party had gone till late that night. Eventually, everyone but the band filed out around three, leaving the six men sitting around the room in comfortable silence, full of delicious food and drink. Christoph was nursing a cup of Earl Grey tea, face wreathed with the fragrant steam that rose from the cup he cradled in his hands. He was half asleep, a pleased smile on his face. Paul and Till were discussing something with Ollie, Richard occasionally interrupting them to add his opinion. Flake was poking at the last of his cake selection when his birthday bracelet bumped against the plate, making a soft chiming noise. Startled, Flake laughed to himself when he realized that he'd forgotten he'd put the bracelet on. It barely drew notice to itself with its spare but elegant in design. It matched his personality perfectly. He looked up, met Richard's eyes and said, "You're right. It **is** me."_

...and now the realization as to what Richard had said that evening came back to Flake in a rush. Spare but elegant, flashy enough to catch the eye but not blatant, and from the abuse he'd put it through (including catching it on a hook in his kitchen cupboard twice and the metal not budging an inch or warping out of shape), a lot tougher than it looked. Everything he was, represented in a few ounces of sterling silver and copper.

Flake had no more tears to shed, so he curled around his pillows, stared at the window across from him and watched the moon rise over the back garden.

::

Across the hallway, Paul and Christoph were curled on Christoph's bed like two kittens in a basket. Paul was asleep, spooned around Christoph with his nose buried in the back of his neck. They'd sat down on Christoph's bed as it was closest to the door, their legs unable to carry them any further. Paul had leaned into the drummer's side, tears sliding down his usually happy face. Christoph draped an arm over Paul's shoulders and hugged him gently, his own tears forgotten as he tried to comfort his long-time friend.

"It's not fucking _fair_ , Doomie," Paul whispered.

"I know, Paul, I know," Christoph murmured, kissing the top of Paul's head. "I just don't know what else to do."

"Richard is one of my oldest friends, Doomie. He wouldn't just off and vanish off the face of the earth. I know him better," Paul continued.

Christoph, trying desperately to find something to say that would keep them both from bawling their eyes out further, said "Maybe one of his rabid fangirls got hold of him and he's locked in her basement. He was out buying hair gel and cat treats, they had a net up in a tree he had to pass under and they dropped it on his head when he wasn't looking. Now he's locked up in the basement with the washing machine and dryer, being fed a steady diet of pre-pitted cherries and absinthe."

Paul shot Christoph a look that was part horror, part 'dude, have your lost your mind?', then started snickering. "Oh my God...fuck...Schneider, you are one sick, _sick_ bastard!" he giggled. "You have a really messed up imagination. Either that or you found someone's DeviantArt account and used that for inspiration."

Christoph began giggling, which set Paul off completely. "You remember when he found that website with all that Photoshopped pictures of him and Till? I've never seen anyone go from horrified, curious, amused and back to horrified in such a short amount of time!"

"I think it was the fan fiction that did it. Well, the slash fiction. The really badly written stuff. The stuff that you think has to be a joke because it's so wonderfully _bad_. The kind of bad that you should be proud of being able to write without stabbing yourself in the eye with a pencil because you can't believe you wrote something so awful," Christoph snickered. "The pictures were just the straw that broke the camel's back. We tried to hide them from Till but when he got wind of them, you remember?"

"I'm not going to forget that little episode no matter how long I live, Schneider! First Richard got yelled at for hunting down something that wasn't as entertaining as bad porn, then yelled at for not showing him the better written stories. Then you and I got yelled at by both of them for standing there and making snide commentaries about the pictures!"

"And your comment where you said the artists obviously liked Richard more because they drew his dick all pretty and artsy didn't help, Paul!" Christoph retorted. The two men spent almost an hour remembering all the things they had gotten into over the years. The stories came to an end at last, leaving the two men feeling a little better. It didn't last; the depression came back over them as heavily as before. Christoph pushed himself to his feet and was beginning to walk out of the room when Paul caught his shirt sleeve, bringing him to a halt. "Can...can I stay with you?" Paul said in a soft, lost voice. "I mean here, in your bed. Not in my bed."

"Of course. I was going to ask you anyway," Christoph said, heading for the tiny bathroom that was shared between the six band members. It looked as if it had been part of a larger room at one time and been partitioned off as an afterthought. You could get two people in there but only if one person either sat in the tub or in the doorway. Paul chose to sit in the bathtub and wait for Christoph to finish scrubbing the tears from his face so he could do the same. Any other time they'd have laughed over Paul's choice of location but they were so numb, nothing mattered more than getting cleaned up and to sleep as soon as they could. Once both men were done, they went back to their shared room, kicked their shoes off and nestled together under the soft blankets. None of them had ever thought anything of sleeping in the same bed and now, more than ever, they all needed someone to hang on to.

Paul had fallen asleep almost as quickly as his head hit the pillow but Christoph couldn't. He kept running scenarios over and over in his head, his habit of thinking of the absolute worst thing that could happen making his stomach churn and ache. He knew Richard had made some enemies in his day, but none of them struck him as particularly dangerous. Even the people the band had offended as a whole weren't dangerous, just annoying.

"Reesh, what the fuck have you gotten into?" Christoph muttered to himself. Snuggling deeper into the blankets, the drummer let his eyelids drift shut, not noticing when he went from wide awake and worrying himself to pieces to the warm embrace of deep sleep.

::

Where Till, Christoph, Paul and Flake had gone to ground to deal with their grief, Ollie made himself comfortable in the living room with his laptop, an iPad and a legal pad balanced on one knee. He settled a headset mike over his head, pulled the hood of his jacket up over that, and went online. Something bothered him, something he'd seen in the evening paper the night before. He brought the newspaper's website up, paged through it and when he found what he'd been looking for, he had to force himself not to yell in triumph. At the bottom of the last section of the paper, buried halfway down the page, was a short article about a recent spate of disappearances among the city's homeless population. The incidents wouldn't have come to light had a social worker that dealt with homeless children not gone to the paper to ask them to try and shame the local police into doing something to find the children as she had been unable to get them to even agree to look into the disappearances.

Every two weeks or so for the last six months, a couple of children between the ages of 9 and 14, always a boy and a girl, would simply vanish from the face of the earth. There didn't seem to be any pattern to the children disappearing; they were taken from the shelters, from the homeless camps, even off the street between their schools and their current homes. The reporter noted at the end of the article that it had been two weeks and a day since the last pair of children vanished.

Ollie yawned hugely while he pulled up a file from the hard drive of his laptop, ran down the list of names and contact numbers until he found the one he wanted. He had several acquaintances through the gaming community and the person whose name he picked out owed him a couple of favors. Plugging his headset into the mike port on his mobile, he tapped the phone number into the keypad and hoped his hunch would pan out.

"Detective Myserson speaking. How the hell are you, Ollie? I wondered when you'd call, I was going to shoot you an e-mail tonight if I hadn't heard from you. What can I do for you?"

Sweat broke out on Ollie's freshly shaven skull and relief made his toes tingle. "Jack, I need help. Richard's gone missing. I think I might have an idea but I don't have the resources you do. And no one can know about this. Please."

"Anything I can get is you is yours, my friend, you don't have to ask. What's your idea?"

Ollie quickly outlined what the band had done so far to locate Richard, the bar owner's murder and the disappearance of the homeless children. "I think there's a connection but I can't put the pieces together the way you can."

The man on the other end of the line hummed to himself and began tapping away on his computer keyboard. "Shit, Ollie, why didn't you call me before this?"

"We only found out two days ago that Richard was missing. We'd had plans to get together earlier this week to start prepping for this US leg of our tour when he didn't show up at our usual pre-rehearsal dinner. None of us have heard from him in exactly two weeks. We went over to his house and he hasn't been there for two weeks. I was reading the paper the other night, saw the story I told you about and for some reason, it all wants to fit together," Ollie said, leaning back in the chair and rubbing his sore eyes. "And before you yell at me, we've decided we're going to go find Richard."

"Are you out of your mind, Riedel? You five? Please tell me you're kidding me."

"No, I'm not. There's something really wrong here, Jack, and it's bugging the shit out of me that I know there's an answer but I can't find it," Ollie begged. "Please. I can't explain it, but..."

Jack sighed, exasperation clear even through the cellular connection. "OK. But promise me if you guys do decide to bring the police in one this that you call me first. I may not be the world's biggest Rammstein fan but I am your _friend_ and I know how close you all are to each other."

"Promise," Ollie replied, voice beginning to shake. He was reaching the end of his endurance and fast, and knew if Jack wasn't able to help him soon, he'd crash and burn again like he had earlier.

"Here's something interesting for you," Jack continued. "When the first few pairs of kids vanished, I planned out a grid of where all those kids vanished from and where the bar owner that was murdered was found. It's a spiral of sorts; the center seems to be at the edge of a very old neighborhood at the east of town. It's one of those parts of town that used to be full of old money, now it's mostly run-down and the people who live there either inherited the houses or that's the only place they can afford. It's not a bad neighborhood, just old. Give me a second and I'll send you a scan of what I've drawn."

Ollie fought the shakes as he waited for the document to arrive. Not quite a half minute later, he had the document on his laptop screen and was staring at it, chewing on his lower lip and thinking. "Jack, can you overlay that over a Google Earth shot of the same area? I can do it usually but right now I can't think of my own name."

"Coming right up. Just thought of that myself," Jack replied. "You ever want a job as a cop, let me know."

"Thanks, but I'll stick to being in a band. You ever want a job as a pyrotechnician or a Till-minder when he's got a bug up his ass, let me know."

"I'm not chasing after your mountain man of a lead singer when he's pissed off and has a flamethrower in his hands," Jack snort-laughed. His laugh was caught short when the realization of what he and Ollie were both looking at hit him. He coughed, cleared his throat and said, "Riedel. You see what I do?"

"The center of the spiral is one house and gets wider. It's like whoever's taking those kids and probably Richard started in that neighborhood and maybe when someone got suspicious they moved to better...ugh...hunting grounds. For lack of a better term. Ugh."

"You sure about that 'no involving the police' thing again?"

"For the moment, yes. As soon as everyone can get their heads together, I'll show them this. The only reason I'm not curled up on the floor and catatonic is because I'm too mad. Once this hits me I'll fall apart but not now," Ollie said, feeling his fingers beginning to go numb due to his clenching his hands so hard. "Why hasn't anyone paid attention to finding the missing kids? Doesn't _anyone_ care?"

"You hit the nail on the head. These missing kids are homeless or poor. They have to have done _something_ to deserve being homeless or poor," Jack said, irony and more than a little anger in his tone. "Uh-oh, I see my boss on his way over. Like I said, I want to be the first cop you call. I've tried to get the folks higher up to do something about the missing kids but they claim they have more 'important things to worry about.' My _ass_. You guys be careful, yeah?"

Ollie promised to do just that and clicked his phone off as he clicked back on the map Jack had sent him. He reached out and touched the screen, running his fingers over it as if he could reach into the pixels and find Richard. The exhaustion he'd been trying to hold off chewed its way into his awareness; he was barely able to pull the headset mic off and make it to the couch before he passed out and into sleep. As he drifted away, he murmured, "Hang on Reesh, we're coming for you."

::

Till was awake and prowling around the house that afternoon when Richard's laptop arrived via FedEx. He quickly signed for the package and closed the front door quietly, carrying it back to the room he would have shared with Richard. He knew he should wait for the others to wake but he couldn't stand staring at the box and wondering if there were any secrets in Richard's laptop that would point a finger and say "That is where he is!" He tore into the box, not caring if he made any noise, unwrapped the layers of anti-static material around the laptop, then placed it carefully on the small table near his bed. He started to open the laptop when a sheet of paper slid out from between screen and keyboard and landed in his lap. Puzzled, Till picked it up, wondering if it was a packing slip or a note from Richard's neighbor who had sent the computer to them as they'd asked.

It was a letter, but not from the neighbor. It was a letter addressed to Richard, dated a month earlier. It was handwritten in a flowing, elegant hand on fancy paper. It looked gorgeous until one noticed the ink was a sullen, dried blood-red and the text of the letter went from formal to utterly mad. Till had gotten his own share of insane letters over the years but this topped them all. Simply reading what was written made him sick to his stomach and feel as if he'd touched something dank and poisonous. On the back of the paper, Richard had written a couple of notes, one to send the letter immediately to their managers and the second, dated two weeks earlier, was "There's been this guy hanging around the Red Shoe and the pet store that I swear I've seen before."

Till's blood ran cold as he re-read the letter and Richard's notes on the back. He'd had a couple of stalkers who sounded just like the writer of the letter and they'd made him nervous as a cat for days. He understood madness as well as anyone who has dealt with it themselves, but this kind of madness was beyond that. This was anger as bitter as wormwood, as potently deadly as a black mamba bite, and madder than a rabid dog.

Without thinking about how angry the others might be for peeking through Richard's laptop without them present, Till popped the computer open and booted it up. He had to snort when the log in screen came up and took the same password Richard never changed-the name and birthdate of his daughter, Khira Li. "Bless your stupid little heart, Reesh," Till murmured, "but you really need to change your password. Any thief could get in and steal everything you have, but thank you for not doing it!"

There wasn't much to look at. Lyrics were in one folder, music in another, a miscellaneous folder that Till looked at quickly and closed; there was nothing there that he needed to poke his nose into. He was starting to think it would be a good idea to wake Ollie up and have him work his magic with the laptop when a file that was up near the very top of the screen caught his eye. It was a document, not placed in any file folder, and the name of the document was just a collection of letters. Till clicked on it, and what the document said brought tears to his eyes again even though he'd promised himself he wouldn't cry anymore:

_"Meine Brüder, meine Familie, meine Freunde:_

_Well, almost time for the US leg of the tour. I found some pictures from the last tour of the States on a thumb drive in my laptop bag last night and they prompted me to write this note to go along with the copies I'm currently pulling together for all of you for your collections. I'll have them with me when we have our pre-rehearsal dinner in a couple weeks. I can't wait to see your faces when you see one or two of the funnier pictures in the collection. And for the record, I didn't take them, I'm innocent!_

_I've always taken for granted how close we are to each other but seeing these pictures, the memories they bring back, makes me realize we're not just very close friends, we're brothers, we're family. We haven't always been good to each other, I've said horrible things that I wish could be taken back, and done things that I'm ashamed of even now. That we've managed to pull ourselves back from the brink many times and still remain as we are amazes me and humbles me too. I wouldn't ask for better people to proudly call my friends-and my family._

_See you in two weeks!"_

Till stared blindly at the document, chewing on one finger, not noticing that it was starting to bleed. "I wonder why he wrote this down and...wait." A quick check of Richard's main e-mail account showed Till that there was an e-mail in the "Out" box that had been ready to send but the mail program failed halfway through. He clicked on the e-mail icon and sure enough, the text of the un-sent e-mail was exactly the same as the document he'd just read. There was a "failure to send e-mail" alert in the main mailbox with the same date as the e-mail, with a timestamp of roughly ten minutes later than the e-mail.

"Richard wrote this, sent it out and never paid any attention to see if the e-mail sent," Till murmured to himself, closing down the laptop and pushing it to the middle of the table. He sat, staring at the wall for a moment, feeling so tired it was an effort to sit up. Resigning himself to sleeping than trying to fight his sorrow any longer, Till settled down on what would have been Richard's bed, rolled himself up in the afghan he'd had draped across his shoulders earlier and fell asleep.

:::

_Out in the ether...._

_...rippling through the dreamscape comes a cry for help, filled with pain and fear. It reaches out for familiar minds and souls, stretching itself thin. At the end of its endurance, the cry for help touches the minds and souls it seeks; the touch sets the dreamscape aflame, feeds back into the six minds/souls that are one, and shows the five what the sixth has been enduring..._

_...pain and shame and sickness, rage at a shadowy figure with a sliver of silver in its hand that smells of death, eyes that blaze red/black and cold as the grave_.... _sickening wave of lust tinged with the need for bloodshed and torture...rage flaring high, turning to ice turning to need turning to joy and comfort and ease and sleep and hope...linkage joined by one other dreaming mind that is as female as the other male. This touch is grieving, weak and terrified, the shadow figure's oily, tainted lust thick upon its skin...shame and suicidal darkness only kept back by the bright spark of hope that joins it to the other that gives it a sanctuary from the monster that waits for them_...

... _and they see him, their lost brother, their heart-bound friend, holding a woman with hair as ruby red as sunlight through stained glass. They are asleep, their quiet joy and affection for each other a shield against the madness that rages above them. The shadow-figure is paying no attention to the couple below for he has new prey to toy with; young, ripe prey that has never known the loving touch of a parent's hand, only the harshness of the city streets._

_The monster growing inside the shadow-figure is changing rapidly due to the drugs and viruses it has been experimenting with, his own need to do so overwhelming his need for revenge, at least for the moment. It laughs in glee at the child's feeble struggles to free itself from the cables that hold it to a metal table in a room as sterile as an operating theater. A thick tube buried in the child's arm drains its blood into a series of labeled flasks, each with a different color at the bottom. At long last the child takes its last breath, its body is flung into a zippered, vinyl bag and from there into a wooden box to be disposed of later. The shadow-figure carries the flasks over to a lab bench where it begins work on the blood and chemical mixture in each flash, chuckling happily to itself the whole time._

_Its mind is completely unshielded; its thoughts are the most evil, most loathsome and horrifying any of the five dreaming minds have ever seen. Humanity always comes up with new ways to destroy each other, and this monster right now is climbing up that ladder to join the worst of the worst. Manipulating viruses that on their own are bad enough into a much more malevolent form, combining that new virus with untested drugs and chemicals, then adding untainted human blood as a carrier, the monster revels in the chaos and death it plans to unleash. But first, it is time to administer its daily dose of "supplements." It goes to a refrigerator and pulls four syringes out of a rack, snaps a needle on the end of each syringe and without hesitating, plunges all four needles into its chest. The monster does not scream, it sighs happily as the contents of the syringes pour into its body. Once done, the syringes are thrown into a nearby sharps container and the monster sits on a lab stool to wait._

_It is not long before the first tremors begin. The monster shivers all over, back bowing as it begins to grow stronger, taller, less human looking than before. Five minutes later and it is all over; in the place of the mousy, middle aged man is a tall, muscular male with retractable claws and small fangs. Its eyes have no whites, its face is smooth and bland as a child's. Insanity creeps into its gaze and it purrs happily until it realizes that even though its body has changed, it is still weak as a normal human being. The monster screams in rage, barely able to contain itself and begins to destroy the lab but checks itself at the last second. It sees the last of the jars of blood that haven't been combined with anything and gulps them down, hoping that will give it the gift it seeks. When nothing happens for a moment, it shrugs its shoulders and retreats to its office to records its observations and results. Once done, it staggers upstairs to the main part of the house to see if sleep will bring on the change it desires..._

_. **...tillpaulollieflakeschneidertillpaulollieflakeschneidertillpaulollieflakeschneiderwe'reherewe'reherewe'rehere...**_

_...a last burst of information is pulled from the monster's mind, channeled through Richard's mind and hurled down the dreamscape, boosted by the redhead's raw power that conserves itself carefully to make sure the information gets to where it needs to go_ **...**

_::_

Christoph, Paul, Flake, Ollie and Till all woke at once, heads buzzing from information overload. Christoph flung himself out of bed, tripping over his own feet, running for the door as Paul woke and was right behind him. Flake burst out of his room, eyes wide and babbling in his attempt to put into words what he'd just seen. Ollie levered himself up off the couch, dizzy and slightly stunned. He staggered across the living room and would have run right into Till who grabbed his arm and held him upright even though he wasn't in much better shape. The men all tried to talk at once, bouncing from German to English, peppered with Russian (from Paul), and probably would have ended as an argument had Ollie held up his hand and yelled, "I know where they are! Well, I have a good idea where they are."

Flake, who was probably the most pragmatic, level-headed person on the planet, gave Ollie a look over the top of his glasses and said, "If what we all just...experienced...came from anyone else I'd call bullshit. But this is _us_. Where do you think Richard and that redheaded woman are?"

Ollie flipped his laptop open and once it was booted up, gathered the others around the living room table. He brought up the file Detective Myerson had sent him that afternoon and leaned back in his chair so everyone could see the aerial photograph with the search grid laid over it. "I have a friend in the police department here. He's been trying to get his supervisors to look into the deaths of some homeless kids for the past month or so, but they're not listening. He tracked where the missing kids were last seen, plotted them out on a graph then put it over this photograph of the city. Do you see what I do?"

Paul was the first to see the pattern. "It's a spiral going...out?...from that old house in the center. The last dot's up at the very edge of town; what's that white building it's near?"

Christoph squinted at it and said, "The label on the building says something like Vista...no, Vis-Tek. Chemical company, maybe? Lab?"

"Wait a second, I'll see what Google has to say... _well, well_ **.** It's a laboratory, specializes in virology, genetics and research. There's no neighborhood nearby, wonder why there's a dot up there?" Ollie said. He brought the e-mail that had accompanied the grid-photo and read it through again, a frown crossing his face. "Jack said that he added that dot up at the lab because around the same time the third pair of kids vanished, a researcher at Vis-Tek did too. He says that a co-worker called the police because she was supposed to meet with a friend of hers who worked there that afternoon but she never showed up. Jack seems to think that the woman who worked at the lab might be connected to the kids vanishing; either she's the bad guy or she's a victim."

"She's the redhead that's with Richard," Till said without hesitation. "The...monster...we all saw in our dreams? That's who took Richard. He took her first because she made him look like an idiot and broke his nose when he wouldn't stop picking at her. That's what I saw in Richard's mind and in hers."

"But why Richard?" Flake asked.

"Emigrate," Christoph growled. "That man-thing we saw? He blames Richard for doing Emigrate on the side. He's convinced that we're breaking up and it's Reesh's fault. Whatever he's done to him is punishment. The guy's so far past insane I don't think there's anything to call it. He's going to kill Richard and that woman if we don't find them first."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Flake said, rising from his seat and heading for the door, stopped only by Ollie's hand on his arm. "Give me a half hour," he said. "Let me leave word with Jack so if things go pear-shaped we'll have help."

"Fine. A half hour it is. Till, would you and Ollie give me a hand pulling some stuff together that we might need?" Flake agreed, gesturing for the men to follow him. Paul began to stand up and go along when he saw Christoph's eyes roll back in his head. He leapt to catch the drummer from hitting his head, then had to cling to him hard when the first convulsion rattled them both from head to toe. His yelp of surprise brought the others running; Till grabbed Christoph's ankles to keep him from hurting his feet while Flake and Ollie helped Paul hang on to Christoph. Suddenly, his back arched and he opened his once bright blue eyes that were now shaded black from corner to corner. He gasped and whispered, "He's coming. The monster's coming and it's mad and oh god it knows you were here run run run..."

Paul reared back and slapped Christoph across the face once, twice, and when Christoph opened his eyes again, they were back to their usual blue. Staring up at his friends, he coughed twice, and struggled to sit up. "That was from Richard, we don't have much time," he said, letting Till pull him to his feet. "Ollie, I'll help Till. You call your friend and we'll get out of here. Paul, you want to give Ollie a hand?"

Half an hour later the men were standing in the living room, dressed in shades of black and grey (Till's suggestion), with Flake and Paul carrying backpacks with clothes for Richard and for the redhead they'd seen. Christoph had a length of broomstick over one shoulder as did Ollie, and when Till gave them a funny look they said, "Martial arts training a couple summers ago. We were bored."

Flake turned to the door, stopping long enough to make sure his ponytail was pulled tight, then reached over to do the same for Christoph. He met his friends' eyes and in a voice of icy rage that hardly anyone had heard in a long time, said, "Time to go a-viking."

  


 


	6. Let Me Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I might be a Rammstein fan but I _do_ need new test subjects."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. None of this ever happened. It is for entertainment purposes only, no money is made from this work. All rights are reserved.

_Let Me Break_

_I'm in a room without a light_

_A room without a view_

_I'm here for one more treacherous night_

_Another night with you..._

" _Torture,"by The Cure, from the album_ _Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me_

::

Lilly and I were working on my ability to ground and center properly when we heard a muffled scream come from above us. Even though the cell we were in was soundproofed, noise still leaked in from time to time. It was the thin wail of a child in terrible pain and I jumped to my feet, parental instinct to see what was happening roaring awake at the sound.

"What the hell is he doing up there now?" I said, running for the steel door and pressing my ear against it. Even with my newly augmented hearing I couldn't hear anything save my heart beating in my ears. Lilly stood below the ventilation grille, eyes closed as if that would help her hear more clearly. We didn't need to do either of these things because the screaming began again, louder than before and more agonized. I stuck my fingers in my ears and slumped down the wall, wanting to shriek but forcing myself not to. Lilly had her fingers in her ears, yelling obscenities through the grille, promising the mad doctor a thousand agonizing deaths the next time he came into our cell.

The cries trailed off into bubbling gasps and whimpers, then nothing. I was extremely glad Lilly had taught me how to shield myself; the psychic damage of feeling a child die horribly would have driven me insane. Most humans are programmed with the instinctual need to protect the young, but for someone who had become a parent, it was twice as bad. Add on top of that what I was now? Yeah, I'd be ripping the veins in my wrists open with my own teeth to stop experiencing the agony.

"He just...was that a child?" Lilly stammered. She looked sick to her stomach; I had to run for the bathroom myself. Yes, I was shielding myself as hard as I could but a little of the psychic overspill of the child's death and sometimes Neal's poisonous, irrational thoughts got through. I coughed, spat out the last of the bile and went over to the shower to stand under the cold water to rinse the nasty taste out of my mouth and the sweat off of my skin. Lilly slid into the shower behind me, shivering from the cold and all we'd heard. Putting her arms around me, she rested her head against my back, crying hot tears that felt like burning metal on my skin. I folded my fingers over hers and rocked us slowly side to side, not caring that I might be turning blue from cold.

"Reesh. You're going to turn blue if you keep standing in that cold water," Lilly said at last, reaching past me to shut the water off. I turned around in her embrace, leaning down to kiss her forehead. She was warm and otter-sleek in my arms, every curve and dip she possessed fitting against me like we were puzzle pieces. Except...something felt off where her stomach pressed against mine.

_Oh my God._

She was pregnant.

Lilly raised her chin and met my eyes squarely. "It's not yours. I was on the pill...and you can guess the rest. If I figure right, I'm three months along. And the second I can get rid of it, I'm going to. I will _not_ have a baby by that bastard."

"Do you ever want kids?" I asked.

"No. I like them but I'm not bringing a child into this world. Especially a child whose genetics are probably shot to hell. He's been using himself for a test subject for a long time; who knows what kind of monster I'd have? He'd probably kill it anyway."

"What...what if it was mine?" I asked. "Would you feel the same way?"

"Believe me, Richard, having a kid with you would be on _purpose_ , not an accident," Lilly replied. "And you have how many kids? You don't need another. But you do sire pretty babies."

"Oh thank you sweetheart! You make me sound like a stallion at stud!" I grumbled, but smiled at the same time to take the sting out of the comment. "But seriously. If this...was mine,would you feel the same way?"

"And I repeat what I said. It would be on _purpose_. I saw too many girls and women in the neighborhood I grew up in who didn't think of all the responsibility and lifestyle change having a kid would mean, and I swore I wasn't going to do that to myself or a child."

We'd made out way out of the bathroom and back to our little nest by this point. Lilly folded herself down into the blankets and I joined her,suddenly so exhausted I couldn't keep my eyes open. I didn't care if it was drug induced or I was so overwhelmed by all that had happened, all I wanted to do was sleep. Lilly pulled the blankets over us and whispered as she did every time I fell asleep before she did, "Go ahead and sleep, my heart. I'll watch over you."

_::_

_I watched as my friends stood over Christoph, helpless as the connection that had formed ping-ponged around his mind, forcing him into convulsions. I had no clue why when he woke up from sleep that the connection didn't break but I could see it was going to kill him if I didn't break it; it was more than he could handle all at once. I tried to carefully unravel the connection but it re-knit itself as fast as I pulled it apart. Gritting my teeth and taking a firm grip on the red/silver/blue/black "thread,"that bound us together, I hissed, "Sorry about this Schneider, this is going to hurt like a bitch," and jerked as hard as I could. The thread stretched like elastic then when it did snap, the backlash knocked me on my ass. For a split second, poor Schneider saw everything Neal was doing, all the killings, the viruses he'd injected himself with twisting his psyche as it changed him physically, his increasing madness. I felt the connection flare into nothingness, the pain of its leaving left me paralyzed and grieving._

_Hurryhurryhurryhe'scomingheknowseverythinghurryhurry...._

::

Nothing like being slapped across the face to wake you out of the deepest of sleeps. My eyes popped open and when they did, I wished like hell they hadn't. I was staring up into our captor's face, his skin was now bleached white, lips stretched to cover fangs that would have made a sabre-tooth tiger proud. If that wasn't enough to freak me clean out, his eyes wouldn't have been out of place in a shark's face; black, cold and soulless. He'd either lost his hair or shaved it off for the last time I'd seen him he'd had a mop of greasy,no-color hair that looked like he'd hacked it off with dull scissors. Now he was completely hairless, and for some reason that frightened me more than his shark eyes did. I felt a dull ache in my cheek and hoped the fucker hadn't broken my cheekbone. He wiggled a black-clawed finger in my face and purred, "Don't worry about your face being messed up, pretty boy, that was just a love tap."

"Oh fuck off! What the fuck do you want now?" I hissed, rubbing my cheek and feeling the heat of yet another bruise forming under my touch.

"First to congratulate your living through that lovely virus cocktail I gave you. I modified it a little from the original virus I gave Lilly. Interesting that your fangs are different than hers and you don't have claws. I'm sure when I dissect you I'll find more wonderful things I can't see right now. And second, you might want to know your friends are riding to your rescue."

 _ **:How the hell does he know that?**_ _:_ I shrieked. Lilly was in a corner behind him, hiding in the shadows. _ **:I don't know. You haven't talked in your sleep lately, so unless he's developed telepathy, which I doubt, he's either been watching them or he's figured it out. I'd bet on that before the telepathy:**_

"What are you babbling on about, jackass? Nobody in the band knows where I am!" I snapped. The doctor hauled me to my feet, his talons poking holes in my shoulders. "The house your wonderfully misguided little friends that you so lovingly betrayed are staying in is at the edge of my new hunting grounds. I just happened to be in the area,checking my traps, when I saw them come boiling out of the house like a beehive set on fire. Heh. Fire. I made a funny...anyway. I heard them talking and it's only a matter of time before they manage to find this fortress of mine and then...well, I might be a Rammstein fan but I _do_ need new test subjects."

Imagining my best friends being subjected to what Lilly and I had been through broke me. I didn't care if he killed me, I was going to do everything I possibly could to put a few dents in the good doctor before I went down for the last time. I lost all the hard-won control I had over my temper and flung myself at him, using every trick I'd learned when I wrestled as a kid, every dirty trick I'd learned over the years, and some things Schneider had taught me. Neal fought back not by being better than me but by brute force. I was a lot stronger and agile than I had been before I'd been infected but in the long run it was an uneven fight. I thought I'd gotten the upper hand when I landed a kick to his crotch that made him wheeze and bend over when he stood up, laughing madly, and backhanded me across the room without exerting himself. I managed to tuck and roll before I hit the wall but the landing was as painful as if I'd not even tried. I heard my ribs on both sides of my chest creak; a couple on my left side snapped like twigs. It was hard to breathe through the pain and nausea but I heaved myself to my feet. I didn't stay upright for long; my ribs were a bright flare of agony, as was my right shoulder. Hitting my head on the wall didn't help matters either.

As I went back down on my knees, Lilly hurtled out of the shadows like an avenging angel and lashed out at Neal's face. From his shriek of pain she must have connected with something sensitive. He swung at her, missed, and spun around, his own claws out and ready. Lilly ducked under the swing, punched Neal in the kidneys and slashed at his legs. She didn't cut them clean through but she did enough damage that he went down with a shriek of pain. Dancing back,Lilly set her feet, raised her hands and waited for Neal to stand.

 _ **:You've busted three ribs, your right shoulder is coming out of the socket and you have a concussion, dearheart:**_ she said. _:_ _ **Stay out of this. I owe this prick a world of hurt times a hundred:**_

_**:A concussion? Oh. That explains things. I think. If I've got all those broken bones, why don't they hurt?:** _

_**:Ever hear of shock, Kruspe? Shut up and let me concentrate:** _

_**:I think I love you:** _

_**:Flatterer. Hold that thought:** _

Lilly moved like she'd had years of martial arts training. She was beautiful to watch, using Neal's clumsy brutality against him without seeming to use any effort. Only using her claws to put annoying little nicks in his skin or to poke at sensitive areas, she was as deadly as a lioness on the hunt. Even with my bell solidly rung and only now realizing that I had broken ribs and that they hurt, I still was able to admire her technique, her gracefulness. She chased the mad doctor around the cell, forcing him off balance, never allowing him to come close enough to touch her. His legs were bleeding badly; he was growing clumsier by the moment from blood loss and should have been crippled. Lilly's claws had laid open a huge slice in his forehead and in the way of all head wounds, it bled fiercely. Between trying to shake blood out of his eyes, stay on his feet and out of Lilly's way, Neal was losing. And he knew it.

When he was close enough to the door, he smacked the panel, shattering the keypad. Sparks flew as he reached into the panel and pulled a handful of wires loose. With a yank, he threw the wires across the room, pulled the door open and screamed, "This isn't over, either of you!" The door slammed shut behind him and we heard the locks engage from the outside. Lilly leaned against the wall, breathing hard and when she looked up at me she was smiling.

"Fucker," she snapped, pulling away from the wall and coming over to me. "Let's get you cleaned up and see if I can do anything about those broken bones and put your shoulder back in place."

" _Okaaayy._ Did you just kick the ass of a guy who would scare my best friend Till into hysterics?" Everything was fuzzy around the edges and hilarious. Yep, I had a concussion.

"Yes I did, honey. Does that bother you?"

" _Noooo_. I like women who can kick ass. Even mine. Did I tell you that I love you?"

"That you did. Now come on, sweetie, you're going to have a nasty headache and you've got the beginnings of a nice black eye, " Lilly coaxed me over to the bathroom. I hung onto her arm, punch-drunk and dizzy. I was able to sit down on the cold cement floor before my legs went rubbery, the pain of my broken ribs and dislocated shoulder shoving me into a dead faint. As I lost consciousness, I said _**:Not lying. I'm in love with you:**_

And that's all I remember.

  


 


	7. How Soon Is Now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Wilkomen meine Freunde!_ I’ve waited quite a long time to meet all of you; how _lovely_ for you to stop in!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, this is a work of FICTION.

_How Soon Is Now?_

_No more tears now, I will think of revenge.—Mary, Queen of Scots_

_::_

Flake was the first to reach the rented SUV; pulling open the passenger side door, he threw his backpack into the seat and followed it, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a black cable that he plugged into the vehicle’s accessory port, the other end into his mobile. Ollie had downloaded the map they had been looking at earlier onto everyone’s mobile phones and showed Flake how to upload it into the SUV’s on-board navigation system. Ollie was second to climb into the vehicle, settling himself in the seat behind Flake before pulling cables out of his own pack and bringing his laptop out of hibernate mode and online. Christoph tossed a small black box to him and said, “Heavy use battery pack off of my computer. Can’t have my laptop die on me in the middle of a melee. Especially with _you_ on the opposite team.”

“Never underestimate the ingenuity of a hardcore gamer,” Ollie laughed quietly, carefully plugging the battery pack into his laptop. Pulling another smaller box out of his jacket, he turned it on and plugged it into a port on the side of the machine, watching for a little green light on the top to signal that he had a secured Wi-Fi signal. Once the light showed green, he opened three windows with various programs he needed in them, then looked up, meeting Paul’s eyes. They were unusually solemn and hard, something Ollie hadn’t seen in quite a while. It broke his heart at the same time it scared him.

“Need help?” Paul asked as he slid into the back seat next to Ollie. He’d pulled a pair of tight, black gloves on to keep his hands warm, or so he’d said. Ollie knew his friend’s hands were shaking horribly; he reached over, took Paul’s right hand and saying, “You bet. C’mon up here and grab that map printout for me.” The men bent their heads over the map and computer, talking quietly among themselves, occasionally leaning forwards to talk to Flake.

Meanwhile, Till and Christoph were arguing about who would drive. Till was slowly coming to a boil as they argued; Christoph wasn’t far behind from losing his temper himself. “Look, Till,” Christoph said, clenching his hands inside his jacket pockets, “When’s the last time you drove anything this big at more than highway speeds?”

“Not lately. But Schneider...”

“ _No_ , Till. I know how to do this, you don’t. Please don’t argue with me, okay? If that makes you mad you can beat the shit out of me later. Right now none of us, especially Richard, needs you to be arguing with me over this!”

Flake was at the end of his rope by that point. Knowing that Till would continue to press the point till the cows came home, he leaned across the driver’s seat and yelled, “Till, get in the fucking back with Paul and Ollie and _shut up!_ Do not make me come out there and drag you in by your balls! I am not kidding _, Dietrich Lindemann!”_

Five minutes later they were on the road with Christoph driving and Till in the back seat where he’d been squished in between Ollie and the door. At any other time he’d have pounded Flake into the pavement for calling him by his hated birth name but the look in his friend’s glacial blue eyes put the fear of God into him and shut his temper down in a heartbeat. Now he was watching as Ollie typed a text message to his friend Jack, telling him they were about 20 minutes away from the old house where they thought Richard and his fellow captive were.

“Where in the world did you meet an American cop?” Till asked Ollie, curiosity bringing him out of his sulk. Without looking up or stopping what he was doing, Ollie said in his soft, measured voice, “Online gamers community. He plays a couple of the same online games I do and we got to talking one night about what we did for a living. I didn’t tell him about being in the band, then a few months ago he asked me if I was related to Rammstein’s bass player. I didn’t tell him who I was till I did a bit of research and found out that he was a police detective and some other things that meant I could trust him, so I did. He’s a decent guy, pretty clean as cops go. I didn’t want to bring him into this but he’s the only person I know around here and can absolutely trust.”

Till nodded, and settled back into his seat, watching the streets rush by with one eye and Ollie’s computer screen with the other. Paul sat on Ollie’s other side, hands stuffed into his armpits and chewing his lower lip half bloody. He met Till’s eyes and tried to smile but it fell away quickly and he went back to staring out the side window.

Christoph maneuvered the SUV through the evening traffic, an earbud stuck in his right ear to hear the onboard navigation system’s spoken directions as not to have his concentration broken by taking his attention off of the road. He handed the big vehicle as if it was a Formula One race car, moving smoothly in and out of the evening traffic, changing gears on the fly. When Till remarked on his driving, he said “Binge-watched three year’s worth of ‘Top Gear’ the other night.”

Everyone’s eyebrows went up; Christoph looked into the rear-view mirror, saw Till’s widened eyes and impressed expression and continued, “Hey, it was either that or watch some stupid shopping network. Thank fuck I was in the living room and too tired to get up and find my wallet, else I’d have bought a solar-powered birdbath, a set of knives that could cut a block of wood in half and an ant colony.”

Till couldn’t help it; he started snort-giggling madly. Paul tried not to laugh but gave up quickly and began howling with laughter. Ollie smiled but kept up with his work; Flake simply rolled his eyes. “Can I ask _why_ you would have bought that stuff?” he said, giving Schneider a raised eyebrow even though he was barely able to keep from laughing himself.

“You know how I am when I get nervous. Need something to keep my hands and mind off of things. Why do you think I keep a few pairs of drumsticks around all the time? Certainly not to knit with.”

::

_Our lovely host hasn’t returned to torment us for what I think is a couple of days. We can hear him stomping around upstairs occasionally, but other than that, he’s ignoring us. Which I won’t complain about. I’d rather not have a repeat of what we heard recently. I have enough on my physical and mental plate to deal with at the moment because Lilly is slowly going mad. I can feel her sanity slipping away bit by bit no matter how hard I try not to, and I can’t follow her into madness. I have to stay strong for her._

_Right after she got my shoulder back in place and my busted ribs wrapped up, she started to fade. Now she’s wrapped up in a blanket, curled in a corner and won’t speak to me verbally or otherwise. She hasn’t really blocked me out of her mind, but something’s there that warns me off every time I try to reach out to her. When I tried to join her in the corner, she looked up at me; what I saw in her eyes made me retreat as fast as I could. She has the same look you see in the eyes of an animal that‘s in a trap and it hurts so much to see that in her lovely blue eyes._

_She doesn’t know it but I’ve seen spots of blood on the floor where she’s gotten up to pace around her small corner. Every once in awhile she stops, catches her breath and holds her side, then goes back to pacing. Even if I was completely locked out of her mind, I’d still know what was going on. Her body knows the thing growing inside her has something horribly wrong with it; I don’t know if the fight with the crazy doctor has anything to do with what might be happening, her going through who knows how many weeks or months of torture, or both. Whichever reason it is, it’s killing Lilly inch by inch, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her from dying._

_I can’t lose her. What I feel for her isn’t quite love, but it’s certainly not “friends with benefits.” I haven’t been this close to a woman in a very long time and it’s kind of scary but I like it. She doesn’t act like any other woman I’ve been with; she’s fiery, highly intelligent, funny, and oh sweet heaven, she is so wonderful in bed. If I wasn’t as stupid over her as I am, I’d be happy to be a close friend of hers. But I am stupid over her. If she dies, I don’t know what I’ll do._

_Lilly, my lovely girl, don’t give up just yet, help is coming, don’t leave me here in the dark, you promised you’d keep the dark away..._

_::_

“Huh? Did you say something Paul?”

Paul looked over at Till and said, “I thought you did. Flake, Schneider, Ollie? Did any of you say something?”

Christoph’s startled eyes flickered up to meet Paul’s in the rearview mirror as Flake turned half in his seat to look at everyone else. “I heard _something_ ,” Flake said. “I was half-asleep and thought I was dreaming or heard the radio.”

“What did you hear?” Christoph asked as they pulled up to a stop light. His hands were firm on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white as he gripped the wheel and squished the memory foam that was around the outside of the wheel. He wasn’t going to say anything about what he’d heard until everyone else in the SUV had spoken.

Till frowned for a second. “Something about keeping the dark away? A flower keeping the dark away? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Christoph made a choking noise and said softly, “It was Richard. He said ‘Lilly, my lovely girl, don’t give up just yet. Don’t leave me here in the dark, help is coming, you promised you’d keep the dark away.’ Whatever happened to us when we were asleep earlier must have done...something. I can hear voices in my head off and on, kind of like a distant radio station but I can’t make out what I’m hearing. Or something like that. That’s what I heard just now.”

“The house we’re looking for is on the next block to the right,” Ollie broke in. Christoph nodded and made the turn, hearing the onboard nav system saying the same thing in his ear. Flake began pulling his things together, making sure the first of two first aid kits was safe in the top of his pack. Ollie had the second in his pack, which was now empty of all the computer equipment he’d brought with him. Rolled at the bottom of the pack were a bundle of Richard’s clothes from his house, plus a pair of Paul’s old jeans and one of his t-shirts for Lilly. From what Paul had been able to figure from their quick view of her, she seemed to be the same height as Paul, else his shirt would have become a mini skirt.

Till pulled a pair of gloves on that matched Paul’s, but his gloves had a secret concealed in them. Across the knuckles, molded to fit his hands were a set of brass knuckles, with a wafer-thin plate of Kevlar covering his palms and the backs of his hands. He’d had them for a long time and couldn’t remember who had given them to him, but they were quite comfortable. He wore them when he went hunting or was messing about on his farm, but for some unknown reason, he’d packed them with his clothes when he left home to fly to America. How they’d gotten through Customs without being confiscated he didn’t know. He’d also dug through the drawers in the little house’s kitchen and found a couple of very sharp butcher’s knives that fit nicely inside his jacket. Paul saw him settling the knives in his jacket and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The smile Till flashed him was every inch the skilled hunter he’d become over the years; while Paul wasn’t shaken by it, he still was glad he wasn’t the reason for the sharp, cunning look in Till’s eyes.

“We’re here,” Flake said softly, tucking his hair under his hood. Christoph killed the motor, hands steady despite the rising nervousness and the shot of whiskey he’d knocked back before the band had left the house playing hell with his stomach. He pulled the earbud out, threw it to the floor and slid out of his seat, waiting for the others to join him. Ollie slipped up next to him, quiet as a shadow, and handed Christoph his length of broom handle. Nodding his thanks, he turned to huddle with the others to discuss their plan of action.

“Schneider, you and Ollie first, ok?” Till half-whispered. “I’ll be behind you. Flake, you and Paul are going to be our medics and backup.” They were ready to head for the door when a black, vintage Mustang pulled up near them. A lanky, grey-haired man in head to toe dark combat gear got out of the car and walked over to where the band stood, his matte, black combat boots making not a sound as he walked. Ollie stepped away from the SUV to shake his hand quickly and turned to face everyone. “This is Jack, I’ve told you about him. These are...well, you know who everyone is.”

Jack nodded to each band member solemnly, then back to Ollie. “You and...Schneider?...know how to use those sticks you have?”

Christoph nodded and said quietly, “Ollie and I took lessons for a year. And I was in the German army for two years.”

Jack looked over at Till, who said nothing but removed one of his gloves and handed it over. The cop raised his eyebrows when he felt the metal in the glove and its weight. Handing it back to Till, he said, “Those fuckers are heavy. But then again you’re used to that, right?”

Till nodded quickly. “Don’t know if it’ll do any good but I hunt and I’m pretty good at it.”

“Gun, bow and arrow...?”

“Both. Didn’t bring any of that with me. Got a couple kitchen knives that might be useful.”

“Any port in a storm. What, no flamethrowers?”

Till snorted at Jack, a half-smile crossing his solemn face. “Sorry, not this time out. Maybe next time.”

Jack returned the smile, then turned to Flake and Paul. “What about the two of you?”

Flake touched the backpack that was slung around his shoulders. “I’m a decent kinda-sorta paramedic type. I’m not the best fighter on the planet but I can run pretty damn fast if I have to.”

“We all know some kind of first aid,” Paul chimed in. “I’m not as good of a fighter as Richard when it comes to hand to hand stuff but I’m sneaky. And I can pick just about any lock around.”

Christoph and Ollie shot Paul a look; Christoph shook his head and laughed, “You little _shit!_ When did you learn how to do that? Where were you all the time we locked ourselves out of our flat when we were younger?”

Paul shrugged. “We got in eventually, didn’t we? I learned how to pick locks when I was a kid and just kind of kept up with it. Not something you want to advertise to the world, ya know?”

Jack tapped Flake on the shoulder and handed him five tiny headsets, no more than an earbud and small pickup mike further down the wire with the transmitter/battery box clipping to either an inside pocket or belt. “Picked these up for you guys before I left the station. Better than yelling at each other and whoever’s in there finding out where you are.” Flake smiled his thanks and quickly settled the headset over his hair, making sure the cable was tucked out of his way. He turned to help Christoph with his as Ollie made sure Till’s headset was tucked away under the collar of his jacket, then did the same for Paul. Jack nodded, watching the five band members working quickly to get their equipment ready. “For civilians, you’re pretty good at this. Listen, I’ll go first and then you guys follow me as you were originally planning. I’m not sure what we’re going to find so if things go to hell, the _second_ I tell you boys to move your asses and get out of there, you’ll do it. Clear?”

Grumbles followed Jack’s orders. “You won’t do Richard and that lady that’s with him a bit of good if you’re dead or incapacitated!” he argued. “Either listen to me or get your asses back in that SUV and wait.” Finally, the five men agreed to listen; Jack sighed in relief and said, “I’ve got backup on its way. They’ll be here in ten, twenty minutes. I’d say wait for them but...”

“ _No_!” five voices said as one. Jack met their eyes squarely, seeing the bravery, the slow growing fire of outrage and camaraderie he hadn’t expected out of a bunch of rock stars. Impressed, though he wasn’t going to let on at that moment, he gestured for the band to form up behind him. They ran through one last comms-check, then Jack stole cat-footed across the dimly-lit street. He held a hand up to freeze the others in place, then murmured in the comm-link, “I’m going to go up to the house, knock, and say my car’s broken down. Come along behind me but do it _carefully,_ be quiet and stay in the shadows as much as you can _._ Remember what I made you all promise, right? If I say run, you fucking _run_.”

Jack went up to the door, his service pistol in the small of his back but close enough to get to quickly. He raised his hand and gently knocked on the door, peering over his shoulder and watching the band sneak carefully through the darkness. Tension began to build, bringing everyone’s hair up on their skin, flushing adrenaline through their bodies, ready to fight or run. Ollie and Christoph held their staves down at their sides to hide them in the shadows, Till carefully cracked his knuckles inside his gloves; Paul reached over and squeezed Flake’s shoulder. When he looked over his shoulder, Paul murmured, “Be careful. Only one of you on the planet.”

“You too Paul. Been nice knowing you all this time,” Flake replied.

“And the same to both of you. Now _hush_!” Christoph hissed.

The front door of the shabby-genteel house opened a crack. Jack greeted the person inside, telling them that his truck had broken down in front of the house and his mobile phone’s battery was dead. “I don’t mean to bother you sir, but I really need to get home ASAP. I didn’t see a public phone around here or a gas station, and I hate to bother you, but can I use your phone?”

“Of course,” a soft, cultured voice came from inside. “The phone is right inside the door. Mind the threshold, it sticks up a bit. And I apologize for the lack of lights in here, I’m in the middle of remodeling and half of the circuits aren’t hooked up.”

Till was only a few inches away from the sidewalk when the voice coming from inside the house brought him up short. He _knew_ that voice, and from the indrawn breaths of the rest of the band, they did too. Till took off from a standstill, his long legs making short work of crossing the tiny lawn and up onto the rickety porch, Ollie and Flake behind him with Christoph and Paul hot on their heels. They stormed across the porch and skidded into the house behind Jack, Ollie yelling, “Jack! Don’t go in there! It’s a...”

Jack was lying just inside the doorway, stunned or dead. The band turned and scrambled for the door but they were a hair too slow. The door crashed shut in front of them with a “boom” that sounded more like the door on a submarine or airlock slamming shut than what a wood door would sound like.

“ _Wilkomen meine Freunde!_ I’ve waited quite a long time to meet all of you; how _lovely_ for you to stop in!”

 

 


	8. The Downward Spiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saying my friends know how to make an entrance is an understatement. Even if they’re not trying to.
> 
>  _Especially_ if they’re not trying to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, this is a work of fiction.

_The Downward Spiral_

 

_Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.—Alice In Wonderland_

::

Saying my friends know how to make an entrance is an understatement. Even if they’re not trying to.

 

 _Especially_ if they’re not trying to.

 

I could have heard Till yelling at the top of his lungs through the reinforced steel door even without being able to hear a mouse tiptoe across a glass floor. I’d had an inkling something was up when I felt the edges of my nerves begin to tingle as if I was running my fingers over something filled with static. Lilly had stopped her ceaseless pacing and was standing under the air vent, head tipped to the side and a look of intense concentration on her face.

 

“I hear....something,” she whispered. “Come over here and take a listen.”

 

I got up from where I’d been sitting, trying to ignore Lilly’s pacing, and joined her under the grille. Cocking my head to the side, I held my breath and listened as hard as I could, watching Lilly’s face as she strained to make out anything other than the whisper of air through the metal grille.

 

“Sounds like voices,” she murmured. “What do you think?”

 

I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could, ignoring anything that didn’t “ping” my hearing as a voice and not random noise. The static-like feeling wandering over my skin grew stronger by the second as I stood there, hoping against hope that I was hearing were voices and not my brain trying to make words where there weren’t any. Lilly suddenly grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the grille. “I heard someone talking upstairs, it’s not my imagination! Something about...their car breaking down and needing to use the phone.”

 

The static feeling turned into a shock and I yelped, jerking my hand out of Lilly’s grasp. I didn’t need to be standing near the grille to hear Ollie yell, “Jack! Don’t go in there, it’s a...”

 

 

The thud of a body hitting the floor was loud as thunder.

 

Silence.

 

“ _Wilkomen meine Freunde_! I’ve waited quite a long time to meet all of you; how lovely for you to stop in!”

 

“Oh shit,” Lilly whispered. “Don’t tell me Ollie got it into his head to try and find you!”

 

“Nope, I think _everyone_ in the band got it into their heads,” I replied. I realized the tingling sensation had vanished the second I’d heard Ollie yelling. I didn’t have the time to step back and figure out why; I knew I had to get out of the cell and now. Neal wouldn’t have to break a sweat to eliminate the rest of my band unless he remembered that he was going to experiment on them. I ran for the door and grabbed the handle, pulling for all I was worth and swearing a blue streak. It didn’t budge an inch; I started clawing at the metal, bringing up sparks and putting a few long furrows in the door. If I hadn’t been so angry and desperate to get out, I’d have stood back and marveled at the sparks and deep furrows, then wondered what the hell my mutated nails would do to guitar strings. As it was, I was paying not a bit of attention to any of this, all I wanted to do was get to my friends before the mad doctor turned them into lab rats.

 

“Stop, Richard, you’re going to hurt yourself!” Lilly yelled into my ear as she grabbed my arm and began to drag me away from the door. I winced away and tried to pull loose of the grip she had on my arm but she wouldn’t budge. “Richard, _stop it,_ now! We don’t know what’s going on up there, so quit wiggling, settle down or I’m going to snatch you up by your ball hairs.”

 

“My what? Lilly, I have to get out, I have to get out now!” I screamed. “Neal’s going to kill everyone, I can’t lose my brothers, my best friends! Lilly, let _go!_ ”

 

I saw Lilly begin to move to slap me when I heard Till bellow something I couldn’t make out clearly but from the tone of his voice, he was white-hot angry. I flung myself back at the door, dragging Lilly with me, shrieking at the top of my voice, screaming Till’s name, screaming for Schneider, Ollie, Paul and Flake. I cursed the door, cursed Neal to the deepest Hells. I cursed myself for being so stupid and not keeping my wits about me in a city I wasn’t intimately familiar with, for letting my guard down just enough to not notice someone was following me.

 

I’d been more intent on stopping by The Red Shoe to say hi and shoot the breeze with the owner, Zane, flirt with his waitresses and have a good time for a while than keeping myself safe. I’d tripped over Zane’s lifeless body in the alleyway and gone sailing, catching myself at the last second when I landed against the cold, brick wall of a nearby building. I’d turned, heart in my throat, and before I could move, a hard object came out of the night and clubbed me into darkness.

 

So many ‘‘ifs” and “could have beens” and only myself to blame.

 

Lilly grabbed my hands, ignoring the slashes my nails put in her palms and arms. She bore me to the floor, wrapping her arms around me as we went to our knees. I fought her every inch of the way, kicking, biting, trying to head-butt her, trying anything I could think of to make her let go. She kept a grip of iron on me even though we were both covered with sweat, blood, and finally my tears. I collapsed against her, wailing at the top of my lungs; she held me tightly as I wept, murmuring words to me that I had no energy left to comprehend.

::

“Who the fuck are you?” Paul demanded of the shadow-veiled figure hidden in the hallway’s semi-darkness. “What the fuck did you do to Jack and where the fuck is Richard?”

“So many questions, _Herr_ Landers! But I am being _so_ rude. I am Doctor Neal Williams. Welcome to my little home! I am a bit disappointed that you gentlemen felt the need to show up with a police officer and pointed sticks. Which I will ask you, Ollie, Schneider, to drop right now and kick over to me.”

 

Ollie and Schneider let their staves fall from nerveless fingers, kicking them over to the dark figure as quickly as they could. “Thank you! Such good manners! Now, where was I?”

 

“What...how..." Flake asked, his voice going up a half octave then trailing off as the shadowy figure detached itself from the deeper darkness of the hallway. He backed up a few shaky steps, running into Ollie, who had put his back against the nearest wall the second he’d entered the hall. Both men shrunk back, pulling Till, Schneider and Paul with them. None of them could speak nor move thanks to the blind terror that froze them to the spot.

 

The thing that came into the dim light from the front porch light was every inch as tall as Ollie, built like a professional bodybuilder, and completely hairless. Its skin was corpse pale with a slight tinge of blue to it, ears slightly pointed, and its eyes would not have looked out of place in a shark’s head. Spider leg-thin fingers tipped with black claws that a lion would have envied winked in the light as it picked a bit of lint from its bloodstained surgical scrubs. It smiled a slow, predatory smile at the terrified band, its dark ivory fangs making it seem impossible that it could speak. But speak it did, its sheer presence made more horrifying by the cultured, urbane voice that came out of its mouth. A wave of charnel-house air followed its movement, the stench of old, rotting blood making the band gag and cough.

 

“I also must apologize for the mess. You’ve caught me in the middle of running some experiments and I didn’t have time to change. But come in, come in! Please forgive me for being so excitable, I’ve always wanted to meet you boys, let me go and get a couple things to autograph. Don’t move!” the monster said in a joyful, giggling voice. Of course, the band made a stumbling run for the door, and came to a dead stop when the beast reached out and jerked Till off of his feet as if he weighed nothing. He yelped and smacked at the huge hands that held him up under his armpits, kicking at the creature’s granite-hard legs and making not a dent despite the steel toes in his boots.

 

“Put me the _fick_ down you _arseloch_!” Till roared, trying everything he could think of to make the thing let go of him. Instead of letting go, the monster squeezed its hands together slightly, which made Till gasp and stop flailing. He could feel his rib cage flex under the creature’s grasp; scarlet pain washed his vision to grey and back. The creature lessened its grip but didn’t let go, with a soft chuckle it said, “I really don’t want to kill you, _Herr_ Lindemann, but if I have to I will. I might be an avid fan but I cannot have you leaving here knowing all of my secrets.”

 

Before Ollie or Schneider could grab him, Paul flung himself forward, hoping to knock the beast off balance and give Till a chance to get loose. “Paul, no!” Schneider cried, tearing free of the grip Flake had on the back of his jacket and following his friend. The monster didn’t look away for a second; it raised one huge foot and kicked them down the hallway. They landed in a stunned heap on the splintered floorboards, too dizzy to stand up or move.

 

Ollie and Flake stood rooted to the spot, knowing any move they made would end badly for all of them. The monster giggled softly, and set Till on his feet, keeping one massive paw on his shoulder, its claws sunk in just enough to remind Till to behave. “I am so disappointed at the five of you, acting this way! I was going to be nice but now...well, boys, follow me. Or I’ll forget how sharp these claws and hurt Till. And you don’t want that, do you?”

 

Schneider let  Flake pull him to his feet then helped Paul rise as Ollie kept an eye on the monster. They followed it down the hallway, the creature poking Till gently in the shoulder to keep him moving when he seemed to lag. They went through a kitchen that looked like it came from a 1960's home-maker magazine and stopped at a wooden door with a combination lock on it. The creature pushed Till aside and fiddled at the lock, using its girth to shield the lock so no one could see the combination. Once the door creaked open, it stood aside and poked Till again, making him snarl at the creature. It poked him in the ribs this time and Till jumped away, half running down the short flight of stairs that led below ground.

 

“What are you waiting for, boys? Please, do follow Till or I’ll throw each of you down the stairs and I won’t be careful about where you land either,” it said. Flake and Schneider followed Till, keeping Paul between them and Ollie behind. He stopped for a moment, looked the creature up and down, his gaze colder than an Arctic winter. The monster stepped back a pace, seeing something in Ollie’s hazel-green eyes that it didn’t want to tangle with at the moment. With catlike grace, Ollie turned on his heel and followed his friends into the dank basement.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for reading and commenting!


	9. Childhood's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh what are you going to do, _talk_ us to death?” I laughed. “For a mad scientist, you suck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, this is a work of FICTION.

_Childhood’s End_

 

 _And by the pricking of my thumbs/Something wicked this way comes----Ray Bradbury, from the novel_ Something Wicked This Way Comes, _1962_

 ::

 

I was so lost in bleak depression I wasn’t aware of the lock to the prison Lilly and I shared popping open. I felt her arms tense around me and a low, almost growl forming in her chest but I had no energy left to look up and see what was going on. Cold air ghosted over my skin, making me shiver and curl deeper into Lilly’s arms, then a “memory-scent” I knew so well teased me into looking up... _clean, clear water flowing wildly over ancient rocks, a hint of sea salt, a tinge of burning driftwood...Till!_ Lilly’s gasp of surprise brought me up and I looked into a pair of sea-green eyes I thought I’d never see again.

“Oh my God, Reesh...are you okay?” Till said in a strangled voice, carefully kneeling down next to Lilly and me. Despite hurting all over, feeling like I’d been run over by a bulldozer, I threw my arms around one of my best friends and hugged him as hard as I could. I didn’t have any tears left or so I thought; the moment I laid eyes on the rest of the band, the waterworks started up once more. I wouldn’t let go of Till; I stretched out my hands, trying to grab hold of whoever was closest. The six of us clung to one another, babbling a mile a minute, trying to get everything said that we thought we’d never be able to say again.

 In the middle of it all I held my hand out to Lilly to bring her into our circle but she shied away from me, obviously nervy about being around so many people at once (and all but naked as well). Till solved the problem by making himself as non-threatening as possible (and for someone who’s as tall and built as he is, it’s an impressive thing to see) and saying softly, “You must be Lilly.” It took her another moment to force herself to move and when she did, Till held out his hand, letting her take her time in deciding if she’d touch him or not. We held our breath as she laid her fingers in his palm, smiling shyly and saying, “Yeah, that’s me. Sorry, I’m not used to so many people around me all of a sudden right now.”

 “That’s understandable,” Till replied, giving me enough room to wrap myself around her again. Lilly didn’t say a word or move away; she squished herself back against me, practically climbing into my lap. This change from her usual feisty, take-no-prisoners attitude scared me; I touched our link and saw in my mind’s eye the yawning rabbit hole her sanity was sliding down. Carefully, I extended a tiny tendril of strength to her, shoring her up as best I could. She wasn’t aware of it but some color came back into her cheeks and she didn’t seem so nervous as she had been. I’m glad I did, for a moment later she looked over Schneider’s shoulder and saw Neal standing there, smiling his crocodile smile. This time she _did_ growl and half-rose before she changed her mind and sat back, still growling softly under her breath.

 “Such a pretty sight!” the madman laughed, leaning on the door frame. “Well boys, here’s your precious Richard. I tried to take care with him but he’s a bit accident prone and doesn’t like doing what he’s told to do. I thought about executing him the moment I got him here for what he’s done to the fans and to you boys, but that’s boring. Watching him die slowly will be more fun for me. I won’t force any of you to watch it, I’m not that much of a sadist.”

 “You sorry pile of shit, what did you do to Richard?” Paul snapped. He started to lash out at Neal but Flake got to him in time to grab the back of his jacket and drag him away. “Settle down, Paul,” Flake hissed. Paul turned to snap at him, who gave him a _look_. Sighing, he leaned against the wall next to Flake, obviously not pleased that he wasn’t being allowed to rip the crazy man apart with his bare hands.

 “He’s pissed off because of Emigrate,” I said, glaring at Neal, daring him to make a move towards anyone. “Never mind that we’ve started rehearsing for the US leg of the tour. Never mind that I’ve said over and over that Rammstein is my _home_. My family. Never mind _any_ of the things we’ve said the past several months. In this wingnut’s eyes, I’ve betrayed all of you, all of our fans. So, thanks to that, my punishment is getting shot up with some home-grown virus of his so he can sit back and see what it’ll do to a human test subject.”

I was growing angrier by the second, the rage giving me the strength to stand up. I tugged on Schneider’s arm, gesturing for him to protect Lilly. She didn’t hesitate for a second, she wiggled herself to his side, pushing her face into his shoulder as he wrapped his jacket around her and nodded to let me know she was safe as long as he could protect her.

“And Lilly? She’s here because this bastard wouldn’t take “fuck off” for an answer. I don’t think he’d get the hint to take a flying fuck even if it _fell_ on him. Lilly busted his nose for him and he still didn’t get the message. She’s infected too but with a different virus than what he gave me. But we’re both guinea pigs thanks to this...ah, forget it,” I snapped. The entire time I was raving at Neal, he was edging his way towards Paul. I started to creep in the same direction but he was a lot faster than I could ever think of being. Between one heartbeat and the next, he snagged Paul around the neck and dragged him towards the door. Paul yelped and started fighting, ignoring the wicked sharp claws that were piercing his neck and shoulders. Ollie and Flake ran to stop the madman and might have been able to help Paul free himself but Neal tightened his grip on Paul’s neck, choking him into unconsciousness.

“Stop there or I’ll break his neck, I’m not fooling!” he threatened. Flake and Ollie backed off, holding their hands up to show their surrender. Till started to go after Paul but Ollie shoved Till back against the wall, snapping at him to stop or Paul would be in more danger than he already was.

We were at an impasse. Neal smiled at us and said, “I’ll make a bargain with you boys. Leave Richard with me and I’ll let you five and that useless bitch go. You leave, now, and don’t call the police. Forget that you were ever here. Go find another guitar player who won’t get the wild idea to run out on Rammstein when it suits him. Richard’s the one I want anyway. I’ll be generous and send what’s left of him back to Germany so you can bury him.”

Paul had sort-of come around and was wriggling feebly to get loose of Neal’s claws. The second he heard what the madman said, he went wild again, screaming at the top of his lungs in a confusing mix of German, English and Russian with a bit of French thrown in, cursing Neal to the deepest Hell, using every curse I’d ever heard in my life. Paul was proving what a dirty fighter he could be; if he’d been up against a normal person, they’d be a red pulp on the floor. Neal shook him like a terrier shaking a rat but that didn’t stop Paul from continuing his shrieking and fighting with everything he had. Neal held him out at arm’s length, watching him struggle, then swatted him just hard enough to knock him out again. Sighing as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, he dropped Paul into a heap on the floor near us, shaking his head. “Well? What do you say?”

“Just do it, guys, get out of here and take Lilly,” I pleaded. “I’m not worth your lives. Please make sure my family is taken care of, okay? Promise? This is just between me and this prick.” I had to look away so I wouldn’t see the panic and agony in my friend’s faces but I couldn’t close my ears to hearing those well-loved voices screaming _“No!”..._

...four ever-so familiar voices screaming and one that wasn’t any less forceful, less intense for all that it was quiet and steady. That last voice was almost a purr, silky and dark with a sliver of madness twisted into it even as it was solid as cast iron. I pried my eyes open and saw Till in his usual head to toe black, black hair spiking around his face and sea-glass eyes glowering, stalking towards Neal, barely contained rage showing in how carefully he placed his feet and the set of his shoulders. Till didn’t have to look up much to be eye to eye with him and when their eyes met, I saw Neal gulp and step back. He was absolutely terrified of Till despite his bluster, and he was going to see in a second exactly how much of a bad idea it was to raise our singer’s ire so much.

Seeing Till in a blazing, blind rage is like watching a huge tornado bearing down on a small town in the middle of nowhere. As long as it’s not directed at you, it’s fascinating in a deadly way, but if it is, you might as well bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. Not much stops Till when he’s that angry and thank God he’s only been that mad at me twice. As I watched him lock eyes with the mad doctor, I got goose bumps remembering the cold, unwavering glare on my best friend’s face and how he seemed to.... _grow,_ the only word I could come up with. For someone who can be so quiet you forget he’s in the room, someone that can be so gentle and sweet, Till is downright terrifying when he lets this side of his temperament off its leash. He stopped inches away from Neal, looked him up and down, then spit in the man’s face.

“Fuck. Off.”

The confusion on Neal’s face was hilarious as he wiped spit from his face at the same time he was try to make sense of what Till had just said to him in perfect, unaccented English.

“Wha...what? _”_

“I said, and I’ll repeat it only one more time. _Fuck. Off._ We’re not leaving Richard. You can’t have him.”

Except for Paul, who was slowly coming around, and myself, everyone else nodded. Schneider grabbed my wrist while Ollie clamped his hand around my left shoulder. Flake pushed himself to his feet, standing halfway between Paul and Neal, just off to Till’s left. If I’d ever doubted how my friends felt about me, this was proof that we were more than a band, we were truly a family of the heart.

Neal was shocked, obviously, by the show of solidarity from my bandmates. He’d believed one hundred percent that they’d leave me behind to whatever fate he had planned for me. Looking wildly about, he looked in Schneider’s direction and saw Lilly still curled under his jacket, bright red hair blazing against the black material. Neal started to speak but Schneider growled, “And you can’t have _her_ either. I saw what you did, you sick bastard. Every. Little. _**Thing!**_ _”_ Schneider’s voice rose to a shriek that broke my heart; I remembered that before I’d been able to sever the tiny bit of contact between us that would have killed him otherwise, poor Schneider had seen everything that Lilly had endured as if he’d lived it himself. Our drummer was much more sensitive than people thought; he was going to have nightmares for the rest of his life from that brief contact.

 “Fine. She can go, she’s useless as a research subject now anyway. I’ve gotten from her what I wanted. But if you don’t leave Richard, then none of you can go,” Neal said.

 “We’re not leaving,” Flake said, helping Paul stagger to his feet. Ollie, Till and Schneider echoed him, circling around me and Lilly. “Either Richard and Lilly go with us or we don’t go at all,” Till said.

 Neal threw his hands up in the air with a shout. “To hell with all of you idiots. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to say goodbye because after that, I’m going to eliminate every one of you. Slowly, painfully. The first one to go won’t have to watch the rest of you die. You’ll beg me to end your miserable lives before the end.”

 “Oh what are you going to do, _talk_ us to death?” I laughed. “For a mad scientist, you _suck_.”

 “Stupid boy. I’ve got a new virus in the cooker right now that’s a lovely combination of what you and Lilly have in your veins with enough material from a modified strain of feline rabies and a dash of some DNA from a child that died from a tropical virus that caused her to have violent, uncontrollable seizures that tore her body and brain apart. On paper it works out to be a terrible way to die but I need proof. You and Lilly, most likely, will be the most resistant and the last to die. The twenty-four hours start now, so don’t waste that time staring at each other.”

 The cell door slammed shut behind the insane man, the sound of the locks clicking into place like gunshots.

::

I’m not sure how long the seven of us sat on that cold floor, exhausted and confused. Ollie snapped out of the fog first, handing me and Lilly some clothes from one of the two backpacks that Neal had either not seen or ignored. I shooed Lilly off to the bathroom to dress while I pulled on underwear, jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, socks and a pair of my favorite boots that had a steel plate across the toes. When Lilly returned wearing a shirt and jeans that I recognized to be Paul’s and her feet bare, I felt weird looking at her clothed, the tattoo on her back hidden and hair tied back from her face in a tight braid. “Clothes feel strange,” she said quietly, coming back to our huddle and snuggling under my arm. “I don’t remember how long it’s been since I had anything on but a towel.”

Paul was leaning on Ollie, still off-kilter from being slammed around and knocked out twice. “You don’t know how long you’ve been here?” he said.

“What day is it?” Lilly asked. “Or better yet, what’s the date?”

Ollie checked his watch, then told her. Lilly made a retching noise and jumped to her feet, running for the bathroom at top speed. I started to follow but Flake caught my arm and said, “Let her go. Give her a couple minutes, okay? She doesn’t need you hovering at the moment.”

 “She’s...she’s been here...four months? How long have I been gone?” I stammered.

 “Two weeks and three days as of now,” Till said. “If we hadn’t planned that pre-rehearsal dinner, we’d never have known you went missing so soon. We spent about two days after we realized you were gone trying to track you down. If Ollie hadn’t seen an article in the local paper about some homeless kids in the area going missing, we’d still be looking.”

 “I have a friend... _had_ a friend who’s...who _was_... a cop here. He got us in here but I think that nut job killed him just as we came in the door. He wasn’t moving the last time I saw him. I hope he’s not alive because I wouldn’t leave a roach alive to face that freak show upstairs,” Ollie explained. “Jack had noticed a pattern in the kidnappings and after I looked at the same things he did, I saw it too. The last kidnapping was Lilly, which at the time was right at the edge of where his ‘hunting grounds’ were. When you look at all the information planned out on a grid, it’s in a spiral that goes outward from this house. One of the ‘rings’ passes right over that bar you told us about...the red...something?”

 “Red Shoe.”

 “Right. All of the kidnappings took place over a four month period and like I said, Lilly was the last, until he got you. He said he’d found out that we were going to try and find you on our own because the house is in an area he’s using now to look for kids. I don’t want to know what he did to those kids. I’m gonna have nightmares just from this mess alone,” Ollie said, rubbing his eyes.

 “They were his blood supply,” Lilly said softly as she wobbled her way across the floor. “All the viruses I worked on, that he worked on, used blood from a blood bank and sometimes we used “engineered” blood. Fake blood that was like human blood but with no impurities, clean as you could get it. All the blood at my old job is pretty closely monitored, and I don’t think Neal could smuggle enough out to use, much less keep it at the right temperature. So, there’s your link to the missing kids. There’s an incinerator at the lab, so that’s what he does with the bodies.”

 “Please don’t tell me you had something to do with coming up with either of these viruses,” Paul said, blinking woozily at Lilly. He looked somewhat better but not quite out of the woods yet.

Lilly shook her head, slowly, saying, “He stole my original work and modified it. I was working on an AIDS vaccine as well as a new rabies vaccine before he showed up. The day before I got fired because I punched him, all my work was given to him. The next day, my lab was trashed and all my computers were fried. I don’t know if that’s connected in any way. My work was designed to only function in a lab environment, not in animals or humans. That way if something catastrophic happened, it wouldn’t go wild and cause a pandemic. The only thing I can figure is he’s got contacts with black labs that’re supplying him with _something_ to modify the two original viruses because he’s making them mutate in ways they’re not supposed to be able to do. I can’t even begin to make a list of what he could be using.”

 “He’s experimenting on himself, that’s for sure,” I said. “When I first saw the guy he was your stereotypical 98 pound weakling----no insult, Flake (“None taken,”). He could probably bench press a cement truck without working too hard at it now. I’m no lightweight but the last time he slung me around I might as well have been a beanbag toy for all the effort he had to put into it.”

 “I think he’s messing with more than just the viruses,” Lilly mused. “There’s nothing in any of the original materials that would cause rapid muscle growth, enhanced strength, all the things he has. But if you add or subtract genetic materials from the originals, you _could_ come up with something like you and I have, Reesh.”

 “So it’s accidental that we look like vampires, I have hearing now that a cat would envy and we’re telepaths?” I sighed. “No. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not accidental. This guy out-weirds the weirdest shit out there.”

 “He’s given me enough scream-myself-awake-nightmare material for this lifetime and a couple more,” Till said, stretching out on one of the mattresses we’d piled in a corner away from the door. I could hear his spine crack and pop as he wiggled around to find a more comfortable position and winced as his bad knee cracked. “Damn. Need to get that re-injected with steroids or _something_ when we get out of here. I sound like I have popcorn in my knee.”

 “How are we going to get past him? He’s got an electronic lock on the door and the door at the top of the steps coming down here has a combination lock on it. Not to mention the fact that the guy’s a musclebound geek with a major chip on his shoulder,” Flake said. “I’m not getting within ten feet of his claws, either. Paul, you and Till should let me check those punctures on your shoulders and make sure they’re not infected or worse.”

 “I’ll go first,” Paul said, tugging his jacket and shirt off. He shivered in the chill air, rubbing his hands on his arms. “Fuck, it’s cold in here!”

 “No it’s not, you’re running a fever,” Lilly said, going over to give Flake a hand. He looked at her for a second, then said, “That’s right, you’re a nurse. But...how do I know that?”

 “You were in Reesh’s memories for a short time, right? That’s how you know. I’ll assist if you want, _Doktor_ Lorentz,” Lilly replied, carefully bumping Flake’s shoulder with her own. He smiled at her and said, “I’d be glad for the help. I’m not used to patching everyone up like I used to.”

 “You never forget,” Lilly snorted. “Paul, he really gouged a chunk out of your left shoulder. Doesn’t it hurt?”

 “Yeah, it hurts,” Paul grumbled. “It’s not bleeding anymore, is it?”

 “No, looks like your shirt and jacket took care of the bleeding. But two of these five punctures on your shoulder bother me. Don’t get mad, but I’m going to have to poke at them a bit and make sure nothing broke off in the holes,” Lilly said, her voice distracted as she took inventory of the two first aid kits and coming up with a pair of rubber gloves that she snapped on before continuing. “I don’t want to infect you with what’s inside me in case I nick my finger or something,” she said quickly, obviously due to the alarmed look on Paul’s face. “I won’t take a probe to any of the holes, just squeeze on them a bit. Yell all you want but do _not_ move, okay?”

 I tossed a towel over to Paul, saying, “Bite on that if you need to. The last thing we need is for Doctor Crazy-Pants to think we’re having a good time down here.”

 “Gee, Kruspe, that makes me feel _so_ much better. Okay folks, let’s get this show on the road.” Paul stuffed the towel in his mouth, bit down and closed his eyes, bracing his back against the wall. He yelled a couple of times while Lilly worked on his shoulder and tears beaded at the edges of his eyes but he took the whole procedure fine. The second Lilly was finished with checking his puncture wounds thoroughly, Paul jumped to his feet and paced back and forth, swearing mightily under his breath. “Not your fault Lilly, don’t think it is. Hurts like a bitch.”

 “I’m not surprised, those claws have some serious ragged edges,” Flake said, cleaning up the small mess he and Lilly had made. “If they were razor sharp they probably wouldn’t hurt as bad. Come on Till, your turn.”

 Till frowned. “Do I have to?”

 “You don’t have to get up but yes, lose the shirt and let me see what’s going on,” Lilly ordered. Till sighed and made puppy dog eyes at her, but Lilly wasn’t moved. Till finally did as he was told and when we got a look at the damage those claws of Neal’s had done, my heart nearly stopped. Paul had been lucky that they hadn’t gone as deeply as they could have, but Till wasn’t. His right shoulder was a bloody, pitted mess; he growled, “Yes, they hurt. My knee hurts worse, fucker must have kicked it.”

 “Throw the towel over here, he’s gonna need it,” Flake said over his shoulder to me. By the time he and Lilly had cleaned Till’s injuries up, we were all shaking from the stress of hearing Till try so hard not to scream but losing the fight. He didn’t argue with Flake when he insisted on checking his knee out, which meant having to shrug out of his jeans without jarring his shoulder or the bad knee. Ollie saved Till’s dignity (such as it was) by handing him one of the blankets Lilly and I used so he could cover himself up before Lilly could take a look at his knee.

 “My dear, there’s nothing in your pants I haven’t seen before. Ask Reesh, he’ll tell you what I told him when we first met,” she said, changing gloves and studiously keeping her eyes fixed on Till’s. She didn’t blush a bit but all six of us men did, me the hardest. Lilly eventually pronounced Till’s knee badly bruised but nothing else. She wrapped it up well with the elastic bandage from the first aid kit she’d been working out of, then sat back on her heels. “I’d keep a brace on that if you’re going to be on it a lot.”

 “I usually do but I didn’t expect tonight to end up the way it did. It’s a really neat brace too, looks like it weighs a ton but it’s feather light,” Till said. “I’m overdue on having shots in it which isn’t helping much.”

 Once Lilly was sure we were okay, I pulled her aside and whispered, “I know you’re coming apart mentally. Don’t argue with me; I want you to ‘lean’ on me as much as you can. I don’t care how much the strain will cost me in the end. You need the support.”

 Lilly sighed and rested her head against my arm. “I won’t argue. But you know how much I hate asking.”

 “I know you do, dearheart. I’m the same way, I’d rather have root canal surgery without painkillers than admit I need help.”

 Lilly wiggled her arms around my waist, her breath warm on my chest. “While I was getting dressed, the...thing…it’s…gone. If I wanted it gone so much, why does losing it hurt so much?” she sniffled.

 “ _Libechen_ , it’s all right. You have every right to feel how you do. If you need to mourn what could’ve been, that’s perfectly all right. If you don’t, that’s perfectly all right too,” I replied, rubbing her back. She trembled under my touch, saying in a bleak, broken voice, “I’m useless. I let him do this to me. I let him hurt me…I’m a monster.”

 “What? No, you’re not, Lilly! Everything you’ve been through, how strong you’ve been not only for yourself but for me? The monster’s upstairs, not down here. You’re brave, strong and...damn, woman, you have every right to fall apart if you want to.”

 As if what I’d said broke the lock Lilly had put on her psyche, she sagged into me and began sobbing. Till was the first to her side, with everyone else coming at a run to see what was wrong. Lilly shrieked at the top of her voice wordlessly and went to her knees, Till and I cushioning her fall as well as we could. Schneider took one of her hands, Ollie the other while Paul and Flake knelt between them, adding their voices to ours to try and comfort her. When my arms got too tired to hold her properly, Till took his turn while I rested. We never stopped talking to her, never stopped keeping some kind of physical contact with her, trying to keep her anchor to reality as solid as possible. She finally dropped into sleep; she went so quickly I missed it. One second she was wide awake and crying, the next she was out like a light.

 “Stay with her,” Paul said, bringing a couple blankets over and tucking them around us. “We’ll take turns watching over you two and if you need a break, we’ll be right here.”

 My throat was too clogged with unshed tears and sore from keeping my own screams back, so I nodded. Paul sat down, put his arm around my shoulders and leaned his head against mine. “I was so scared we’d never find you in time, if at all,” he said in my ear. “I miss you a lot when we’re off on our own, away from the band, and thinking that you might never come back...”

 “Me too,” I whispered, taking one of Paul’s hands and weaving our fingers together. We were silent for a very long time, then into the quiet, Lilly murmured, “Reesh... _bitte lass mich nich im Dunkeln.”_

 “ _Das werde ich nicht , liebe, ich verspreche es.”_

 

 


	10. Run Baby Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **  
> _:To the end. One mind, one heart, one soul:_  
>  **

_Run Baby Run_

:::

" _People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed."-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,_ _The Little Prince_

_::_

"You realize I'm not going to go down without a fight," I heard Flake say. I was half in, half out of sleep, still holding Lilly in my arms. Paul was slumped against my right shoulder, snoring away quietly, while Ollie occupied my left side, eyes closed but nowhere near asleep. At some point, Lilly had shifted around and laid her legs in his lap, the rest of her draped over me, which he didn't seem to mind.

"We're not going down at _all_ ," Till replied. "Yeah, the whacktjob upstairs is nine feet tall with fangs and razor blades for fingernails, but there's seven of us."

"Oh yeah, we're going to try to defend ourselves from a nine foot tall nut job with razor blade fingers and fangs that would make a tiger happy. With _what,_ Lindemann? Our wits and good looks?" Schneider grumbled. "He's not going to come back in here to shoot us up with that virus, he'll figure out a way to get it in the air.At least that's how I'd do it if I didn't want to mess with someone I wanted to infect."

"You have the most devious mind, Schneider," Till said. "But that is a pretty good theory. I don't see why it wouldn't work."

"It would work," Lilly said softly. She opened her eyes and squinted at the lights, yawned and continued. "Just like getting a cold. The cold virus is airborne; it would be easy as pie to put the virus into an aerosol form, squirt it into the air handling system and done.Especially if the room the air handler is going into is under negative pressure."

"Wonderful. Then all we have to do is hold our breath till we turn blue, fall over 'cause we can't breathe, then when we do have to breathe,the virus gets us anyway," I said.

"Wait. What if we were already infected with whatever virus you and Lilly have?" Paul said. I hadn't realized he was awake; I looked over and saw that his eyes were still closed but he was obviously awake. "Is there a way we could get a dose of one of the viruses from one or both of you, and infect ourselves that way?"

"You'd have to have a dose of both of the viruses," Lilly countered. "If what Neal has come up now is based on the viruses he used on us originally, my theory is that the best way to counter it is to use a dose of the original viruses. But the problem is I don't think that would work just sneezing on someone. He infected Richard and me with a dose right into our veins and it went to work almost immediately. Airborne probably wouldn't work as fast."

"Blood-borne or through saliva, then," Ollie mused. "How would we do that... _wait_. Rabies is transferred by a bite. Didn't you say that one of the vaccines you were working with was from rabies and one was based on the AIDS virus, Lilly?"

Lilly sat up, vibrating with excitement. "Yeah, it is. I think I see where you're going. Oral transmission of the virus. Good one,Ollie." He smiled brightly at Lilly, who winked up at him and gave him a watery smile of her own. "But wait a second," I said, "You and I are going to bite everyone in here and hope the viruses stick? We're not talking a nip, we're talking tearing a hole in someone's skin and that's gonna hurt."

"No,"Lilly replied. "We do this." She turned her left arm over, exposing the large veins that ran just below her pale skin. Using the sharp nail on her pointer finger, she nicked the vein enough for her blood to ooze out, slowly, then gestured to me that I should do the same. "Everyone gets a taste of our blood, not enough to make you sick but enough that there will be a decent viral load. Hope no one's squeamish about licking Richard's arm or mine."

"Isn't there something else about the viruses we need to discuss before we jump head first into this whole mess?" Flake said nervously. "Richard said something about the viruses doing something to you so that you looked like a vampire, or something like that. And for someone who's been beaten up, starved and all that, Richard, you look...well, you look half your age."

"Not like I had a mirror to see what was going on, Flake!" I grumbled."Look, this is all we have right now. How much convincing do you need?"

"Well,a bit more information than just you looking like you did when we first met!" Flake argued. I rolled my eyes heavenward, internally cursing Flake's overly-cautious nature. He glared at me and said, "Don't roll your eyes at me, Princess. Just because I'm not quite sure about this whole mess doesn't mean you have to act like I'm being an idiot."

"Flake's right," Lilly said, turning to Flake and fixing him with a gaze that I knew from experience couldn't be broken. "Okay. I used to dye my hair this shade of red and I wore bright blue contact lenses. My hair was naturally a dishwater blonde and my eyes were sort of greyish blue. The new hair color and eyes are permanent as far as I can tell. I had really short, icky nails that wouldn't grow for anything. Now I've got claws that I could dig a hole into a piece of oak and not break a sweat. I had normal teeth, now I have canine teeth that are sharp and slide back up into the roof of my mouth. I was never _this_ pale. I had no telepathy, I didn't heal incredibly fast, didn't have super-sharp hearing, an enhanced sense of smell or night vision like a cat's. I don't have any urge to bite someone and drink their blood; in fact, the taste of more than a tiny bit makes me sicker than a dog with distemper. I can't change into a bat, wolf or a cloud of mist, either. That's what happened to me. Your turn, Reesh."

"Uh.Okay...umh, I've got the sharp canines but they're stuck in one spot. My original teeth fell out and that's what popped into place.Don't have claws, but if you take a look at the door, those gouges in the metal are from me trying to dig my way through it. I've got the hyper-hearing, night vision, enhanced sense of smell, quick healing, and I'm a telepath now on top of that," I said, nervously. "Dunno if the telepathy is from the virus or it was just there all along." I held my breath, waiting for what the others were going to say. I wasn't going to influence their decisions one way or another but I knew that Lilly's suggestion was the only way we were going to get everyone out alive.

Flake sighed, cracking his knuckles slowly as he stared at his knees."What's being a telepath like?" he said softly.

"I can't describe it," Lilly said. "You just have to have it happen. I wish I could describe it better than that but...I can't."

"I can't either," I said. "Not helpful, I know, but that's all I got."

Ollie sat up, obviously as excited as a kid with a new toy and said "I'm in." Schneider stood up behind him, green-blue eyes sparkling and eager. "So am I," he said, fairly dancing from one foot to the other. Paul was as eager to agree, and after a moment of thought,Flake said, "Oh, all right. I'm in too."

That left Till to make his decision. He was staring off into space, eyes expressionless. Just when the tension in the room was near to the breaking point, he looked at Lilly and me and grinned, a smile that was rare and like the sun coming up. "Where do I sign up?"

The whole procedure (which left Lilly blushing and me giggling from being licked in a ticklish part of my arm) took less than five minutes and once we were done, Paul asked, "Now what do we do? I mean, how do we know this is working?"

"I fell asleep for a couple hours," I said. "I'm not sure if it was from stress or what, but when I woke up, the changes were halfway done. Teeth were first, telepathy last. And believe me, that was the worst part of it." I wasn't about to tell anyone that I'd stopped breathing and my heart did too, not at this point.

"Well then. We'd probably get comfy, I don't fancy falling asleep standing up and wiping out on the floor," Schneider said, curling up on one of the mattresses nearby and blinking sleepily at me. I threw a blanket over his shoulders which he burrowed into like a small animal into its den.

"Yeah, one head injury a decade is all I can handle," Till agreed, making his own nest next to Schneider and accepting a blanket from Lilly. Ollie was already snuggled under a blanket, eyes droopy and obviously halfway asleep. "Any chance to nap's a good one," he sighed.I'd never met anyone who could fall asleep as fast as he did, it was comical. Flake kicked his boots off and flopped gracelessly onto the mattress he'd claimed as his own earlier. "If this doesn't work, I want a refund."

I smothered a laugh behind my hands as did Lilly. "Sweet dreams boys.We'll be here when you wake up," she said.

"I'm not gonna wake up a woman, am I?" Schneider sighed, obviously on his way to dreamland. "I like pretty, shiny, fluffy stuff and I look really pretty in a dress but I'd look stupid with boobs but..."

And he was out like a light.

Lilly was smothering her giggles against my back. "Dress him up like a woman once for a video and now everyone's convinced he'll put a dress on at the drop of a hat. Or that he wants to be a woman," she laughed.

"Did you see him a few tours back? Blonde wig, the most god-awful _something_ that might have been a dress at one time? That was _his_ idea."

"Well, he does make a striking woman. C'mon lovey, let's get comfortable and make sure nobody starts growing extra limbs or whatever," Lilly said, pulling me over to the corner we'd staked out for ourselves and burrowed into our nest. It didn't take long before the others were deeply asleep, leaving Lilly and I to sit and wait for them to come around.

"Are you scared?" I asked, once we were comfortable and watching everyone else sleep. I'd seen my friends asleep numerous times in our long friendship but the idea that this wasn't a normal sleep frightened me. What if the combined viruses that were happily working their way through my friends' bodies would change them so horribly that they'd be better off dead?

"For the guys? Not really. For what might happen? You bet. We might already be infected, for all I know. I'm hoping we aren't and that my idea isn't going to make things worse," Lilly said. "But you know, I'm not as afraid as I was before you showed up."

"Why?"

"Because you chose to befriend me and not ignore me or use me for...erm...sex. I don't make friends easily and the few I have I don't see often. I felt comfortable with you right away and it wasn't because you're who you are. Even before we broke out in telepathy (this comment made me stifle howls of laughter), it was like I'd known you forever. You don't scare me. I don't feel like I had to hide anything or be someone I'm not. And if I don't make it out of here, you'll remember me."

"Ah,ah, ah, we're _all_ getting out of here. If I have to sling you over my back like a caveman and carry you out," I said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

"You sweet talker, you. Head's up, Flake's coming around," Lilly said, getting to her feet and going over to Flake's side. "Hey sugar, you all right?" she asked, taking one of his hands and holding it between hers.

"Gaaahh...morning breath. Hey, Lilly," Flake said, pulling himself up into a tall,tall stretch. He blinked, shoved his glasses up on the top of his head and blinked again. "Well, that's going to be weird, getting used to not needing these or contacts."

"What? _"_ I said, going over and peering down into my friend's face. Flake's eyes were quite blue to begin with, but now they were a brilliant,eye-catching, bright sky-blue with a ring of dark blue-grey around the iris. His hair was a lot longer than it had been and was a rich reddish-brown. He didn't look his age anymore, either. In fact, he looked almost as young as he had when we'd met over twenty years ago.

"Show me your teeth," Lilly said. Flake complied and like me, he had small fangs that popped into place when he spat his original canines out. " _Fick,_ but that's disgusting," he complained. Flexing his long, pianist's fingers, he tapped the edge of his nails on one hand and "ouched" when a tiny stripe of blood appeared. "This is going to be interesting," he commented. "I've been meaning to make myself stop chomping on pens and pencils, now I don't have much of a choice. I'll be buying truckloads of them if I don't. Hmph."

"Do you hear anything yet?" I asked. Flake closed his eyes for a few seconds, then said, "Sort of. Schneider said it was like hearing a radio station from far away and that's an apt description. What do I do now?"

Lilly sat down across from Flake and carefully took his hands in hers."Close your eyes and don't think of anything. No, that's not right. Think of someplace tranquil, some place you feel at peace in. Let me do the work okay?"

"What're you going to do?"

"I can "show" you how to keep the bad stuff out, for one. I've figured out a lot of what a telepath needs to know since I've been here and it's easier for me to "show" you than try to tell you," Lilly murmured, closing her fingers around Flake's a little tighter. "It won't take long and it doesn't hurt. Trust me?"

"With everything I have, Lilly," Flake replied, a slight smile curving his lips. Lilly nodded, took a deep breath and closed her eyes.Nothing happened for a couple moments, then Flake's eyes popped open. "Oh wow!" he exclaimed, eyes wide and sparkling."That's...incredible. I think I'd better lie back down and...oh _wow."_ I bit my lip to keep from snickering at my friend's wide-eyed, astonished response and tucked his blanket back around his shoulders.

Ollie was our next sleeper to waken and when he woke up, he immediately spat his now-useless canines out. "Ugh! I lost a couple baby teeth the same way! Uhm...do I have fangs?"

"Yup. And nice ones they are," I congratulated. "Be careful of them,they'll cut your tongue if you're not careful until you get used to them."

"Well? Anything new? Tentacles, antennae?" Ollie said, a bright smile crossing his face. He ran his hand over his head and face, saying,"Huh. I'm _really_ fuzzy. Don't mind that." I had to grab his fingers to keep him from cutting himself. "Treat these as weapons until we figure out how to do something so the edges don't cut through metal and skin."

"Do you feel okay otherwise?" Lilly asked him, peering up into his face. I could see Ollie's eyes were a deeper, shimmery, gorgeous hazel-green that in the dim light were almost emerald with a pure forest-green ring around his irises. And like Flake, he looked much younger, especially now that he had several days' worth of growth of dark brown-red hair on his head and face. Of course, Ollie's never looked his age but this change was even more pronounced than that. Ollie stretched, shook himself all over like a horse shaking off after getting up from rolling on the ground and said, "I feel okay. I've got this weird ringing in my ears though."

"I've got the fix for that," Lilly said. "Sit down back down, close your eyes, give me your hands and think of someplace quiet, someplace you feel safe in." Ollie did as she asked and like Flake,when he opened them again, he looked gobsmacked. He blinked up at me and whispered, "So that's what it's like ...I mean...shit. I don't know what I mean."

"Close your eyes for a bit, Ollie, it'll pass," I said, patting him on the shoulder. "I'll let you know if you suddenly sprout tentacles." He snorted and closed his eyes, legs folded in lotus position and his hands resting on his knees. "This is _so_ cool..."

Nobody else seemed like they were waking anytime soon, so I went back to sitting in the corner while Lilly sat where she could get to Flake or Ollie quickly if she needed to. _**:There's one thing we're going to need to remember:**_ I said.

_**:What's that?:** _

_**:We're infectious to everyone now. Bites, blood, spit and I'm assuming other...erm...bodily fluids. Oh well, it's not like I wasn't practicing safe sex. Or much sex at all lately, other than with myself:**_ I replied.

 _ **:That's what I've told Flake and Ollie when I was showing them everything else they need to know. Oh God, this is like giving your kids the talk about the birds and the bees, except I'm giving it to guys my age. And rock stars at that:**_ Lilly grumbled. _**:Well,better safe than sorry. Does anyone else look like they might becoming around?:**_

I made a quick check and Paul looked to be next on the list. A few seconds later he said, "Kruspe, quit breathing that godawful dragon's breath of yours in my face. And if it's not you, someone tell the cats to get off of my chest if they want me to get up and feed them breakfast."

"Gee Paul, you say the sweetest things," I snickered, helping him to sit up. "You feel okay? Oh, and you might want to be careful, you're gonna be spitting teeth out in a second."

"Huh? What the... _shit!_ And... _ouch_ , are these fangs?" Paul said as he spat out the teeth he no longer needed. "These fuckers are sharp!"

"Told you to be careful," I said. "And mind your fingernails too untilyou get used to having ten little razor blades on your fingers."

Paul examined his fingers for a second, then half-wailed, "I'm going to go through guitar strings now like shit through a goose! _Fuck!"_

I couldn't help it, I started laughing hysterically. Trust Paul to ignore all the changes he'd undergone to go right to something that only another guitar player could understand. He glared at me for a moment then dissolved into giggles himself. " _Mein Gott_ , thisis so fucked up."

"That's kinda what I thought when I first found out how sharp my nails are now," I said, wiping the tears of laughter from my face and then doing the same for Paul, who was snort-giggling so hard I thought he was going to pop. "We'll figure something out. Now, let me take a look at you."

"Am I still gorgeous?" Paul asked while turning a flirting smile to Lilly. She grinned back and said, "You always were, sweetheart. You've got the loveliest shade of dark indigo grey and-sapphire blue eyes now. There's a blueish-silver and black ring around your irises, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you used to have kinda curly hair. And a lot more of it."

Paul ran his hands over his head and blinked. "And dark brown?"

"Yes. And you don't look any older than the day we met," I said. "Check your hands, most of the scars you've accumulated over the years are probably gone. Most of mine are."

" _Sweet,_ "Paul murmured, checking his hands, then he pulled up his shirt to look at his stomach, where he'd gotten too close to a very hot fluorescent light tube one night during one of our very early shows and had gotten a nasty burn. It had never really faded, just kind of lightened up, but now it was gone. When he looked up at me, there were bright tears in his eyes that welled up and glistened in the light. "I...Reesh, this is..."

"Paul, let me show you what I've showed Ollie and Flake, okay?" Lilly said softly. "I don't want you to be scared but if I show you now while you're still half awake, you'll be okay. Come on, give me your hands and think of someplace quiet, some place you feel safe." I could tell Paul's nervousness would have made it harder for Lilly to show his mind what it needed to know, and catching him before he went off on a tangent would keep everyone safe. He did as Lilly asked and in a couple moments, he was hugging Lilly as hard as he could, murmuring something into her ear that made her eyes suspiciously bright. She acted like nothing was wrong but I saw her quickly wipe away tears before she looked up at me. "Wanna take bets who's next up?" she asked.

"Don't make any bets, I'm wide awake," Till grumbled, throwing one arm over his eyes. "And ugh, losing these teeth hurts like a bitch. How long are these new ones going to hurt?"

"Probably a few days," I said. "Be careful though, they're sharp."

"I already found that out," he said, showing me the palm of his hand. There were a couple of shallow cuts that were already half-healed. "I must have had my hand over my big mouth and yawned or something."He shoved his other hand in his jeans pocket, saying, "So what do I do with the teeth I lost?"

"Keep them away from the crazy man upstairs," Flake said. "He'd pull genetic material from the air you breathe if he could; getting it from teeth would be a walk in the park for him."

"I'll give them to you for a birthday present, then," Till said, smiling evilly at our keyboard player.

"Oh _thank you_ Till," Flake snorted. "I'll put them on a gold chain and wear 'em around my neck to ward off evil spirits."

"Don't mention it. Let's see...yes, got the nails too. These would have been handy back in my basket-making days. I guess it's time for you to poke my brain with a stick, Lilly."

"No sticks, silly man. Give me those big paws and think of some place that makes you feel safe, and close your eyes," she said. The second before she shut her eyes, she said to me _**:I'm glad Till isn't taking this badly. He's got such a sensitive soul and so much hurt piled up there already. Well, this will help, not hurt. Who knows what it'll do to his song writing and poetry?:**_

 _ **:He trusts you, as we all do:**_ I said, touching her shoulder, then let her be so she could get on with working with Till. He seemed to take a bit longer than Ollie, Flake or Paul to get his head around what Lilly showed him, but when he opened his eyes, I could see it was time well spent. I'd been worried Till would react badly to suddenly becoming able to hear the minds of every living thing in the world, among other things, but he looked better than he ever did, less world-weary and a lot more content. He held on to Lilly's hands for awhile longer, then raised them up to kiss the backs of her fingers. She blushed and said, "You're welcome. And oh _my,_ I thought you had gorgeous eyes before!"

"Well?"Till asked, looking in my direction. I had to agree with Lilly; where Till's sea-glass green-blue eyes were once unusual, they were now striking. The colors were vivid, set off by the cobalt ring around the iris, made even more-so by his coal-black hair. I could see most of the scars on his face from various accidents over the years were gone and the ones on his hands were gone. "How's the knee?" I asked.

"It's good as new, and I think my back is too," Till said, carefully poking at his once-bad knee and smiling quietly at me. "I'm not gonna sprout tentacles or anything like that, am I?"

"I haven't so far," I teased. Till wrapped one arm around my waist and hugged me carefully, obviously unsure as to how strong he'd become. I returned the hug, gently bumping my forehead against his."You doing all right?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. Jaw hurts a bit but nothing compared to getting burned like I have in the past."

"I thought that maybe the whole psychic thing would be upsetting," I said. "It threw me hard for a while. Good thing it was just Lilly and me, I don't know what would have happened to me if I'd been somewhere else."

"You need to keep an eye on her," Till said softly, while Lilly was talking to Paul. "She's still pretty fragile inside physically and mentally. I was careful to keep my nose out of where it wasn't supposed to be but she's damaged so much inside. I couldn't help it."

"I know she is," I replied. "I'm watching her but not watching her, you know? It irritates her to no end when I hover, or so she says. She's got the temper to match her hair, believe me."

Just then, Schneider came around with a shriek. He sat up, one hand over his mouth and the other digging a hole in the mattress he was on. Lilly was at his side in a blink, arm around his waist, talking to him softly. She held her hand out for him to drop his shed canines into, then said, "Look up at me Christoph. Come on, I need to see if you're okay. I want a look at those gorgeous eyes of yours before anyone else does."

And _Mein Gott_ , she was right. Schneider's eyes had turned a shade between dark sapphire and light sea-green with a greeny-blue ring around the iris. He blinked up at Lilly, Till and myself and whispered, "I don't have...boobs, do I?"

We fell about laughing at poor Schneider who sat glaring at us, the glare growing more intense when Ollie and Flake figured out what we were howling over. "It's not funny! How was I to know that the monster upstairs didn't sneak down here when we were asleep and stuck me with something to make me grow boobs. Or turn into a woman! Not that there's anything wrong with being a woman but..."

Lilly hugged Schneider and ruffled his now-shoulder length, jet black waves. "It's okay babe. We're not laughing at you..."

"We're laughing _with_ you. Ha ha ha. I might forgive you in a million years," Schneider grumbled, his scowl lightening to a smile at last. "So. Be careful of the nails, the teeth are sharp and what else?"

"Let me show you. Close your eyes, give me your hands and think of a place that makes you feel safe," Lilly said. "I know you're scared,Christoph, but don't be. All right?"

"Okay."

At the same time Schneider blinked his eyes open a couple minutes later,I felt something "tickle" the back of my head along with the prickly feeling that I'd experienced right before my friends had arrived to try and rescue us. Reaching out my hand, I touched Schneider's knee, the "tickling" growing stronger with the contact. Instantly I knew what it was, the remnants of the linkage he and I had formed that I'd had to break before it killed him.

"I've felt this before!" Schneider said, voice full of wonder and happiness. "A long time ago. Back when we first found out that Rammstein wasn't going to be a flash-in-the-pan, back when we had our first gig! Lilly, do you think we've always been kind of psychic between one another and the viruses have made it permanent?"

"Can I look?" she asked, "touching" the gossamer link between Schneider and I. It firmed up as the seconds passed, "reaching"out to "tap" politely at Flake, Till, Ollie and Paul. We all gasped as the link solidified, becoming something we could all "see"and "feel." It was weird, kind of scary, but it felt right, like something we'd all missed finally coming to life. Lilly hummed to herself, watching the link and our reactions. Once she was sure we were okay, she began to let go, but we wouldn't let her.

_**:Nope.You're stuck with us/me:** _

_**:Hey! Don't I get a say in this? I don't remember inviting you six into my head!:** _

_**:Please don't shove me/us out, Lilly:**_ I said. _**:You don't need to go on being alone. You've got us/me. Forever. No matter what:**_

Lilly sighed, grumbled to herself for a second, then said, _**:Stubborn,handsome, German bastards. You're right:**_

"Of course I am," I laughed, hugging her to my side, then making room for everyone else to crowd around Lilly to share in the hugs. I was leaning into Ollie when the faintest rattling up in the air vents caught our attention. We all immediately fell silent, breathing as shallowly as we could. I couldn't smell anything other than the sneeze-inducing scent of dust bunnies and hospital disinfectant. Paul raised an eyebrow, stealing on silent feet to peer up into the vent. He was back to the rest of us in a heartbeat, shaking his head. "Mice. I saw one running across the vent but that's it. That doesn't mean anything though," he said in a whisper.

"You can definitely smell the crap Neal could use to aeresolize whatever he wants to put in here," Lilly said. "It smells almost as bad as rotten meat. He's already used it on us once before to put an aphrodisiac in the air. And don't ask about that."

"Lovely,"Till grumbled. "At least we'll know if he's up to something. Or not, if he decides to use something else."

"He won't. I can't remember the name of the chemical he used but it's cheap and easy to get on the open market," Lilly replied. "I can tell he's up to something but he's not paying any attention to us at the moment."

"How much longer do we have?" Schneider asked. "He said twenty four hours, right?"

"We've got an hour left. Anyone have any ideas?" Paul said. Now that we had the mental bonds between the seven of us, we didn't need to speak. We traded ideas back and forth almost quicker than we could think of them. No words, just thoughts, feelings, nothing verbal, and it felt like we'd done this all our lives. It was beyond anything I'd ever dreamed of and more. It was as if we were truly a six-souled being now and it felt **right.**

"I don't think this idiot is going to sit upstairs and gloat," Paul said. "I wouldn't put it past him to have cameras in here but I've met guys like him and they've got to see how much hurt they've caused in person."

"That's what I thought," Ollie replied. "How are we going to get him down here?"

"He's not a telepath," I said. "I've been poking around in his head off and on. I can't really tell what he's thinking but he's just nuts enough that maybe I can give him the idea he wants to come down here if he's not going to do that already."

"Can we all do that?" Flake asked, then shook his head. "Scratch that,yes we can. All of us nudging away at his mind is too much, I think.Richard, can you do it and not get caught or hurt?"

"I'll give it a try," I said. I reached out, making myself as "small"as I could just in case Neal had developed telepathy and we hadn't noticed it. I didn't sense anything at first, just the fleeting thoughts of the mice that were rampant throughout the house. I got braver and expanded what I was letting into my head, and oh what a _bad_ idea that was. The only things I could "hear" and"see" were all coming from his insane mind; it was like being thrown into a lake of fire, like being smothered in molten glass,staked out and left to die in the path of a sand storm. His madness was an oozing pool of sickness, rage and blind hate that had been growing for years. I couldn't help myself; I wasn't quite strong enough to pull back and was caught...

... _awkward child growing to gawky, unattractive teenage boy, never really wanted by either of his genius parents, tolerated because he was so incredibly intelligent. Nothing more than something to trot out on occasions to show off the results of two smart people having a kid,not a child. A possession, a trophy. Angry at first because no one wanted to play with the weirdo kid who looked like he'd been put together by a blind toy maker, anger growing as he grew up and discovered that neither boys nor girls liked him. Something about him that scared everyone away, even his mother who was the only one who unbent long enough to respond to his few tentative attempts at affection towards her. Loved animals, would carry spiders and other bugs out of the house than kill them, found joy in tripping the younger neighbor kids, bullying them the way he'd been bullied. Grew to find even greater pleasure when he beat up one of his childhood bullies and put him in the hospital, then the first rush oft eenage boy hormones when he discovered how much he liked to see people tortured and dying in gruesome ways..._

_...stayed under the radar for years, experimented occasionally on the odd vagrant or prostitute that he found, managed to keep his "tastes"under control while he worked for the military. Found even greater joy at experimenting on himself with the numerous exotic drugs and substances he could get through his job, looking for that right combination to give him all the power and comfort he'd so desperately needed and wanted as a child...thoughts of a kindred soul in Till's lyrics, knowing that someone else out there was as unloved, unwanted as he, for how could a person who was loved and wanted write such things?..._

_...black rage that the one thing that held him together was being pulled to pieces by one man's pride, an overwhelming need to punish, to destroy...and the embarrassment that the woman he had wanted would have nothing to do with him, and the utter joy that he was going to have his revenge and then some at last..._

...I fell out of the link screaming, scrambling to get to my feet and run for the bathroom where I was sicker than I'd ever been in my life. I barely made it; once I was done, all I had strength left to do was sit on the bathroom floor and shake. I had no energy left to open my eyes, and I couldn't get warm, not even when Lilly grabbed me tightly and threw blankets around me, not even when Flake and Ollie dog-piled on me to try to warm me up, not even when Schneider and Till joined the dog pile, and not even when I felt Paul's hot tears on my forehead.

"Richard...Reesh...are you okay? What was that?" he asked, pulling me so I was resting my head on his shoulder. I said nothing, just shivered and wondered if I was going to freeze to death from the inside out. Lilly curled herself around me and said in a cold, harsh voice. "Neal was crazy when he brought me here, now he's a rabid dog that needs to die. If I die taking him out, then so be it. I won't let that monster live another day to hurt anyone."

Suddenly, Schneider's attention snapped to the main part of the cell. "You did something, Richard. I think I hear him yelling his head off."

"He's coming," I said, staggering to my feet, dredging up the very last of my endurance, panting and shaky. "If we don't have a plan by now, we're not going to have one." As he helped me stand up, the gaze Ollie's eyes was pure green-hazel rage, controlled to the breaking point. A predator's smile crossed his face for a second and he purred, "I think we need to have a little talk with our host about his terrible manners and taking what's not his. _Meine Herren, meine Dame_ , if you will come with me?" He held his arm out for Lilly, who stepped up to his side like a queen taking a courtier's arm and we followed them out into the main room. Till arranged himself on Lilly's right side, I was on Ollie's left,while Paul and Flake were slightly to the side, and Schneider at my back, one warm palm on my shoulders to help me stay on my feet.

_**:To the end. One mind, one heart, one soul:** _

  


 


	11. Jailbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nobody will fuck with a man who can, and gladly will, set them on fire for picking on a nice lady.”

_Jailbreak_

 

Fate whispers to the warrior, "You cannot withstand the storm.”

“And the warrior whispers back, "I am the storm.”

::

The metal door swung open slowly, the stench of rotting blood, various chemicals and ozone trickling inside. What lumbered through the door wasn’t human anymore; all of what had been our lovely “host” was gone. I’ll have to say no one in Hollywood has yet created a monster that scared me as bad as seeing that thing come through the doorway. That we were able to stand together, unmoving and not throwing our toenails up from the stench and shared terror was nothing short of a miracle. The thing that had been Neal Williams was still nine feet tall but where its eyes had been black as a shark's were before were now pupiless red balls that seemed to shift and glitter in the sockets without him having any control over them. Its fangs and wicked talons were a lot longer and a whiff of something acidic and sharp came from a dribble of cloudy spit that tracked down its face; I got a stray thought from Till that it was probably some kind of venom from the smell and its thick, pudding-like consistency. His face was halfway between canine and human, an attempt by his body to accommodate his growing fangs but obviously not working.

Whatever Neal had been using on himself put a considerable amount of bulk on his frame, but the creature he’d become seemed to be having trouble moving with all the muscle it had developed, as if it had happened all at once and it hadn’t had the time to get used to the changes. The creature stopped for a second, clutched its head and howled, the cry like having a knitting needle shoved into your ears. Thank heaven it was just a physical sound; if it had been anything psychic I don’t think the seven of us would have survived. As it was, the creature’s anguish and rage was so strong we could almost taste it. It was obviously in pain, a lot of pain, and I didn’t feel a drop of sympathy for it.

“Got a headache?” Ollie taunted the creature. “Aww, does the big, bad monster have a headache?”

The Neal-monster hissed at Ollie, taking a step forward and stopping, its huge nostrils snuffling the air. “You have changed. All of you. I can smell it on you. I can smell...what have you done? You can’t give another person the viruses I gave Lilly and Richard, they have to be injected into them!”

“Looks like your theory was wrong,” I said. “Not too bad for a bunch of stupid rock stars and one cunning, brave woman.’”

“How?” the Neal-monster growled, locking those awful ruby-red eyes with me. I wanted to flinch away from it but I made myself stand still. It pointed a gleaming talon at me and snapped, “ _You_ did something. Tell me what it is and I’ll let you all go.”

“Like hell we will,” Lilly snapped. “Instead of wondering what we’ve done, maybe you should be wondering what you’ve done to yourself.”

“I am...evolving,” the monster said, trying to smile and discovering that with its modified teeth and jaw that it couldn’t anymore. “I am going to become more than I was. I am going to become more than any stupid, weak human could become.”

“Looks to me like the only thing you’re going to become is a blob of muscle and bones in a bag of skin,” Schneider said. “How do you wipe your ass with fingernails that long?”

“Way to go, dumbass,” Flake growled, smacking Schneider in the head. “It’s already mad, let’s make it that much madder!”

The stinking, drooling monster stepped another inch forward, obviously having trouble moving without pain. It was obvious that the changes Neal had gone through had changed him more than he’d expected, and a lot faster than he’d expected. The cocktail of whatever he’d been shooting up with was eating him from the inside out even as it was making him into a monster that would scare the most hardcore horror movie fan to death. We'd discussed that the seven of us still had some changes going on inside our bodies even now, but they weren't anything as awful as what he was going through. Paul's soft heart tried to hurt for the creature but the sense-memory he had from me of being beaten half to death trying to defend Lilly pushed away the pity and replaced it with simmering rage.

I was wondering what our next move was going to be when I felt Till’s shoulder move against mine, then heard a soft “tink” as he put something up the sleeves of his jacket. I had no time to ask him what he was doing as the creature howled again and came lumbering at us, black claws slashing the air and shrieking how it was going to tear us apart one by one. It was too easy to step out of its way and let it crash into the walls, but with each pass, it started to grow stronger and more used to its size.

I thought we were going to get out of the fight without anyone getting hurt, but Lilly was a shade too slow as the monster charged her and slashed her right arm wide open from the shoulder to the knuckles, almost to the bone and she screamed with the insane rage we all felt bubbling just at the edge of her sanity. I could feel her fighting it but she was losing all control; the second before she went over the edge, Till’s hand snapped out, the hilt of a butcher knife dropping into his palm. I saw a flicker-swift movement out of the corner of my eye, then the blade appeared in the monster’s left eye, followed by another that buried itself in the monster’s shoulder. Till swore angrily, yelling “Lilly, get out of the way!” as he shoved her in my direction. I caught her, ripping my t-shirt off and wrapping it around her ruined arm. I tied it firmly around the horrible, gaping wound, hoping I wasn’t cutting the circulation. She grimaced and said, “I can't do anything with my arm like this. I'll think of something. Be careful, okay?” I kissed her on the lips, quickly, and went back to the fight.

You’d think six against one would be an unfair fight, but we’re talking fighting with a monster that was twice as fast as any human, and none of us were armed with more than sheer stupidity and the need to strike back at the one who'd caused us all so much hurt. The two knives Till had thrown to give me enough time to get Lilly safely away were out of the equation; getting close to get any kind of hit in was dangerous. Its nasty claws came within inches of opening Paul’s face up from chin to crown; only a swift, sideways and backwards move saved him from harm. Ollie landed a hard kick to the monster’s behind, sending it crashing into the wall. It hit, bounced off and fell, and with a roar gained its feet and came after us again. Neal, in his arrogance, had left the door open but every time one of us tried to move in that direction, we were cut off. And we were all growing more and more tired by the moment.

 _ **:Shit, he’s going to herd us into the corner!:**_ Paul yelled down our link, making one more effort to duck under the monster’s reach and get to the door. This time the creature snagged the back of his heavy leather jacket, slicing it open and missing Paul's back by a hair’s breath. He scrabbled under the monster’s paw and staggered back to us, shedding the jacket, panting and soaked with fear-sweat. We’d all collected scratches, bruises and spots that would blossom into bumps very soon.

The creature plucked the knives Till had thrown from its eye and shoulder, letting them fall to the ground with a clatter that made us jump. “I don’t need knives to kill each one of you,” it purred, wiggling its claws to show that whatever had been dripping out of its fangs was now pearling up from its claws. “One scratch from these beauties and it’s all over. Granted it won’t be a quick death but then again, why should it be? None of you are fast enough to get by me in the shape you are in, none of you.”

“But I am.”

The Neal-monster turned, quickly, and saw Lilly standing near the wide-open door. It had the most stunned look on its face I’d ever seen and for a second, I wanted to laugh but I stomped on the urge and waited to see what miracle Lilly was going to pull out of her hat.

 _ **:Be ready to run like hell:**_ she whispered down our seven way link. _**:And do not stop no matter what:**_

“You useless bitch! What makes you think you're going to be able to stop me?” the monster yelled. The smile that crossed Lilly's beautiful face was something out of a nightmare, blood dribbling from a split lip, and pure madness turning her brilliant blue eyes dark as sin. She snapped out, “I’m their ace in the hole, jackass. Didja think my boys would be so stupid to not figure out a way to keep your sorry ass occupied while I tore out the wiring in the door and busted the lock on the door at the top of the stairs?” The t-shirt I’d wound around her arm was soaked with blood; from the way she was holding it against her told me that she wasn’t healing as fast as she’d thought.

 _ **:Lilly, don’t mess about too much with your arm the way it is:**_ Flake warned. _**:You’ve got some cracked bones in your wrist and there’s a vein right next to the right side of that cut that one hard strike on it or near it and it’s gonna blow out:**_

_**:Thanks lovey. I know. I’ve got nerve damage too, I can’t feel my fingers: Lilly replied. :Just do what I said and run when I tell you to:** _

The monster goggled at her, obviously unable to figure out how she’d managed to evade his notice. It didn’t take too long thinking it over; the next thing we knew it was charging at her like an angry bull. Lilly began backing up at a run, drawing the monster away from us and the door.

“Run!” she screamed, darting around behind us and shoving Ollie when he wasn’t moving as fast as she thought he should. We reached the doorway seconds later, thundering up the rickety wooden stairs and not stopping until we’d crossed the threshold into the kitchen. I stumbled to a halt, Schneider catching me before I ran into him. A horrendous bellowing scream filled the air, at the same time a wave of stench and blood hit us like a tsunami, making Paul and Flake stumble aside to throw up in the first convenient corner.

“Where’s Lilly?” Till asked, going back to the doorway and yelling down the stairs, “Lilly, get your ass up here!”

“Get out of here,” her voice came up the stairs, faint and full of pain. “Go, or I’ll come up there and kick everyone in the balls.”

Till started to go back downstairs when he came to a stuttering halt in the doorway, hands gripping the wood of the frame so hard it started to creak. Schneider, Ollie and Flake gasped out something I couldn’t hear, then Paul whimpered, “Oh God, Lilly, what... _what have you done?”_

“Huh?” I asked, reaching out through the private bond I shared with Lilly... and felt nothing from her. Not a drop of what she and I shared; that link went deeper and farther than the bond she held with everyone else in the band. Till turned to me, his face bleak and pale as snow and began to say something when I screamed in agony and ran for the stairs, leaping down half the flight without thinking of what might be there waiting for me. When I got to the bottom, half tripping over my feet in an attempt to stop, I sunk to my knees next to Lilly where she knelt in the middle of the room. She was covered in slashes from head to toe that were bleeding freely, leaving little puddles of blood all around her. I reached out to touch her and she pulled away, saying, “I don’t know how much of that thing’s venom I have in my blood. I dunno if I can make you sick if I touch you.”

“Lilly, you locked me...us...out of the bond,” I gasped. “Why?”

“Reesh...baby...if you’d known what I was going to do, you’d have stopped me. All of you would have. I saw where the knives Till threw ended up. I got it, messed up the door locks and waited for a chance to get Neal's attention on me and off of you six. Once you were up the stairs, I gave him an icepick lobotomy with one knife and put the other through the roof of his mouth. I had to get cut up a bit to get in that close but it’s over, Reesh. He’s dead.”

“I don’t care about that! Lilly, you’re hurt so badly...” I reached for her again, only this time she slapped my hands away. “I told you not to touch me, Richard!”

Angrily, I got up and turned my back on Lilly, forcing myself to calm down and try to think as logically as I could. I knew in my heart that she was right but if she didn’t get some of the venom out of her system as soon as possible, she was going to be in a lot more trouble than she was already in. I turned back to Lilly and knelt down again, ignoring her attempts to push my hands away. Lifting her up, I rushed into the bathroom, slapped the shower on, and while it heated up, stripped her to the skin and held her under the spray once it was warm enough. She fought me the whole time, cursing me, but after we’d been under the spray a few moments, she sagged into my arms and held on to me.

“So scared, Reesh,” she whispered, her voice so soft I could barely hear it over the noise of the water hitting the shower tiles. “I’m getting numb all over and I’m so cold...”

“You’re gonna be okay, baby girl,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “Let me wash you down quick, that’ll help with the cuts and maybe get some of that gunk out of you.”

“Okay. Don’t let me go, please Don't let the darkness get to me?”

“I don’t plan on it, sweetheart,” I said, scrubbing her down carefully with the mint soap from the wall dispenser. The suds ran through her beautiful hair, turning pink from the slowly bleeding cuts she’d sustained on her scalp, streaming down her skin and turning the water at our feet maroon. All but a few of the cuts had stopped bleeding by the time I finished washing her down and those were easily dealt with by dabbing them with the edge of a towel that had been discarded in the corner of the bathroom. I carefully blotted her bruised, battered body dry, gently squeezed as much water out of her hair as I could, then helped her back into her borrowed jeans and made her put my long-sleeved shirt on as hers was a bloody, slashed up mess that wasn’t wearable anymore. Even though I was exhausted and hurt myself, I picked her up again and carried her out of the bathroom and up the stairs into the brightly lit kitchen, almost dropping her when I saw Jack standing in the middle of the room, a bandage on his head and looking a bit worse for wear.

“Jack, you’re not dead!” I exclaimed. He laughed at me and said, “Nah, just knocked out. I had the sense to play possum then I ran like hell for my car. My backup was pulling up to the curb as I was going out the door and we tried to get back in but none of the doors would open. We couldn’t break down the door or break the glass in any of the windows. Whatever the good doctor replaced everything with was mil-spec or better.”

As I stood there like a poleaxed cow, trying to make sense of everything that had happened over the last few moments, the room began to fill up with people all trying to talk at once. There were several paramedics trying to muscle Till down onto a stretcher; he kept insisting that he was just _fine_ , thank you, and that Lilly was the person they needed to be looking at. They finally gave up and dragged the stretcher over to where I leaned against the kitchen sink with Lilly holding on to me with what little strength she had left. I pulled away from the grasping hands and snapped, “Don’t. Touch. Her.”

“Reesh, they need to look at her,” Schneider murmured to me. I hadn’t noticed him pushing his way through the crowd and I jumped when his hand touched my shoulder. “C’mon, _bruderlein_ , let the paramedics look her over.”

Tears began forming in my eyes as I gazed down into Lilly’s face, watching her eyes flutter shut and back open again as she fought the poison in her body. “I promised I wouldn’t let her go,” I sniffled. “I promised, Christoph.”

“You’re both skinny enough, we can let you up on the stretcher and still keep your lady in your arms,” one of the paramedics said, pushing Christoph to the side gently. She was a tall, long legged brunette with the gentlest face I’d ever seen. One of her co-workers started to say something and she cut them off with a growled word and a waving hand. “I’m the boss here, you’re not. Go back to bothering that poor cop and maybe he’ll kick some manners into your sorry behind. Go, git!”

“I’ll give you a hand, Reesh,” Flake said from behind the paramedic. “I’ll take Lilly long enough for you to get settled then I’ll give her back. Is that okay?”

_**:Promise you’ll give her back?:** _

_**:Absolutely. She’s going to be fine, between her adaptations to the virus and you getting those cuts washed out quickly, she didn’t get enough of whatever was in that monster’s claws to do much damage. You can’t feel it right now as you’re the most deeply blocked of the six of us but she’s healing up. It'll just take time.:**_ Flake said, flashing me a quick smile that told me more than words could. He took her carefully from my arms, holding her like she was made of china, and patiently waited till the lady paramedic had me settled on the stretcher to her liking. Once I was down, Flake lowered Lilly into my arms and helped the paramedic tuck a heavy blanket over us, then strapped us in. I closed my eyes as we were wheeled out of the house, letting exhaustion and the adrenaline from the fight drain out of my system.

And that was the last thing I knew for several days.

::

It was almost a week before the confusing blur of voices, images and feelings finally resolved itself. I wasn’t sure what was reality and what might be a nightmare for a long time but finally, I woke up in the middle of the night, clear-headed and restless. I carefully pushed myself up in the bed I was in and looked around the dimly-lit room, slowly realizing I was in the hospital and not in my bed back at my house. The antiseptic smell that had permeated the cell Lilly and I had been kept in was very faint here; in fact, most of what I could smell were flowers of all kinds and Lilly’s scent on my skin. I glanced around the small room and snort-laughed to myself; every available surface was covered in flowers of all kinds and colors. Thanks to my now-augmented vision, I could see the colors as vividly as if the room was flooded with daylight.

“Mister Kruspe, you’re awake,” someone said from near the door. I looked up and saw a nurse standing there, holding an iPad with the stylus stuck behind one ear. She brought the lights up just a touch, not enough to spoil my night vision and came in the room, smiling at me. “How do you feel?”

“I’m sore and tired but other than that, I’m all right. Can...can I ask where the lady I was brought in with is? Her name’s Lilly Bailey,” I croaked, lying back down to let the nurse check me over. She took my pulse, listened to my heart and scribbled something on the iPad before answering. “She’s on the other end of the unit. She’s doing all right, sleeping like a log. When you two were brought up here, she refused to let us take her to her room until she was sure you were sleeping all right, and even then your friend...Till?...picked her up and carried her down there. She wasn’t too happy with him.”

“Well, when Till Lindemann says you’re going to do something, you do it or else,” I half-laughed, which turned into a cough. “How long have I been here?”

“You’ve been here almost a week and if everything looks good, you’ll be out of here by tomorrow, the next day at the latest,” the nurse said, her scrubs making a soft “scrishh” noise as she walked around my bed. “Ms. Bailey will be out of here probably at the same time. Your friends were checked over in the ER and we kept them there overnight to make sure no one had anything like a concussion that would show up later on and cause trouble.”

I was suddenly so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I said so to the nurse who patted my shoulder and said, “Go back to sleep. I won’t wake you up any more tonight and I’ll make sure no one else does.”

When I came to again, I knew Lilly was holding my hand, waiting for me to wake up. I looked into her eyes, seeing the unshed tears making the blue of her eyes shimmer. She blinked them away, whispering, “Sleeping Beauty awakens!”

“Dunno about the ‘beauty’ part,” I whispered, too tired to speak any louder and pulling her hand close to my face so I could kiss her fingers. She blushed and said, “You’re beautiful no matter what. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve finally gotten all the sleep I’ll ever need. And drier than the desert. What’s this I hear about Till having to haul you to your room with you protesting all the way?”

Lilly made a face at me and said, “He didn’t have to pick me up, I could have walked down there on my own!”

“You wouldn’t have made it,” Till’s said as he walked into my room. “You were staggering like Richard over there when he’s had three too many.”

“Shut up and hug me you jackass,” Lilly replied, reaching up to hug Till, then leaned aside so he could hug me as well. _**:You need to look in a mirror soon, Reesh: he said.**_

_**:Why?:** _

_**:Let’s say you’re going to be surprised. And no, I won’t let you see it through my eyes. Go look as soon as you can walk without crashing:** _

With a sigh, I slowly crawled out of the bed and once I was on my feet, I found a mirror next to the small bathroom. Too scared to look up all at once, I peered up through my fringe and what I saw made me walk carefully back to bed and sit down with a thud. Lilly touched my hand, saying, “Richard? What’s the matter?”

“Lilly, Till...I don’t look a day over twenty. If that,” I murmured. I’d seen the changes that the viruses had made in my friends, I knew I shouldn’t be too shocked but I was. My hair was still spiky on the top, but it was a lot longer than it had been in ages and it was a glossy blue-black. What few lines I’d gained in my lifetime were gone, and my eyes were a mix of indigo blue and celedon green with a dark, blueish tinted ring around my irises. I checked out my hands and the blemishes from years of guitar playing and general abuse were faded but not gone.

“We’re going to need to figure out something to tell the press,” Till mused, looking at me sideways through his own long fringe. “Of course as far as I’m concerned they can all go to hell but...oh well.”

“I’d like to keep what happened as out of the press as possible,” I said. “The less people know about what we went through the better. Who knows if there’s anyone else out there like...him.”

“Since you’ve been out cold for so long, I’d better catch you up,” Till said, sitting down in the chair he’d vacated when I woke up. Lilly started to sit back down in the chair she’d been in but I moved over in the bed and gestured for her to join me. She snuggled down against me, resting her head on my shoulder, one arm wrapped around me. Till smiled at us, shook his head, and started to tell me everything I’d missed while I was out.

We’d all been shipped off to the hospital to get looked over while Jack and the rest of the police force had gone all over Neal’s house with a fine-toothed comb. They’d found years of records detailing his experiments on himself, on the poor children he’d kidnapped and murdered, his diaries full of insane ramblings and ravings with one volume devoted just to letters to Till that he’d never sent. Till said he’d only seen one page of that diary, handed it back to Jack and told him to please dispose of it, then he’d gone to the bathroom in the emergency room to throw up. Once he was done, he’d taken three very hot showers in the staff's bathroom, half-scrubbing his skin off to try to get rid of the feeling of being dirtied, violated, humiliated.

“I never want to see that book again,” he said softly, his eyes distant and frightened. “What Neal wrote, what he believed I was saying...Reesh, it was awful.” I didn’t need for Till to explain, the empathy that I’d suspected the six of us always had that was now as much a part of our other gifts told me everything. I held out the hand that wasn’t wrapped around Lilly’s waist and Till came over to take it. He stood there for a long moment, eyes closed, trembling ever so slightly, fighting off the emotions that were trying to come back and hurt him. I squeezed his fingers gently, letting him see and feel that I understood. Lilly laid her hand over our joined ones and said, “I know how you feel, Till. You’ll feel clean again, but it’ll take time. I’m having to learn that myself.”

“Oh Lilly, I’m sorry, I forgot,” Till began, only to have Lilly press a finger to his lips. “Shush, Lindemann. “I’ll heal. We’ll heal. Now, go get your chair and come back over here so you’re not shouting across the room.” I knew Lilly was subtly asking Till to come back and let us comfort him as he comforted us and I said nothing as he did as she asked. Once he was back, the three of us went back to holding hands while he continued telling us what happened.

“There was stuff taken out of that place that the American military is quite interested in. Jack couldn’t say what it was, but that someone at Neal’s old job was going to need to answer some very interesting questions as to why they allowed his research to go so far under the radar that the highers up at Vis-Tek didn’t know what he was up to. And heads are rolling there, Lilly, I thought you’d like to know.”

“Thank you, Till. I guess I won’t be going back to take any heads on my own,” Lilly said, deadpan. “Is anything going to happen to the company? Not like I care, but there were a few people I worked with that I’d hate to see lose their jobs over this.”

Till shook his head. “That much I don’t know. I do know Vis-Tek is being investigated by everyone and their dog, and that you were one of the people that was on someone’s list to talk to as soon as possible.”

I felt Lilly stiffen and alarm flare in her veins. “I can’t...I can’t go up in front of those people and tell them what happened to me! I can’t tell a roomful of strangers about being raped, the miscarriage, all that shit!”

“You won’t be alone,” I said, coaxing her back into my arms. “I’ll be there and we’ll have the band lawyers there to chew up and spit out anyone who tries to pull anything with you. I promise.”

“And I’ll bring my full body flamethrower,” Till said, trying to look innocent and failing. “Nobody will fuck with a man who can, and gladly will, set them on fire for picking on a nice lady.”

 

 


	12. Closing Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **  
> _:Are you in love with her?:_  
>  **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we come to the end of this story! But don't worry, there's a lot more where this came from---quite a bit, to let a little cat out of the bag.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who asked that I bring this back to A03---you are the reason I keep plugging away at this. Happy Holidays my friends.

_Closing Time_  


" _A momentary lapse of reason_

_That binds a life to a life_

_And there's one regret we'll never forget_

_There'll be no sleeping here tonight..."_

" _One Slip"--_ Pink Floyd from the album _A Momentary Lapse of Reason_

_::_

It was a very good thing that the US leg of our tour was several weeks away. After the three days of nearly non-stop questioning that the military, state and local cops put us through, none of us had the energy to do more than eat or sleep. Since my Stateside house had more than enough room for seven people, I insisted that all of our stuff be moved from the tiny house over to my place. Even though I'd asked her in private to share my bed, Lilly had insisted on sleeping on the couch in the living room, saying that she wasn't used to sleeping in a soft bed and that it bothered her back. I said nothing, just handed over the bedding with a sigh. I didn't see the melancholy looks I got from the rest of the band but I could certainly feel them.

I was sitting in the back garden, enjoying the last of the sunlight and the company of "my" cats when Till came outside, carrying one of my lightweight jackets as he shrugged into his own. I pulled it on, thankful for the warmth, and made room for Till to sit down. He sat down on the porch next to me, making room for a couple of the cats to snuggle down between us and let a couple more clamber up into his lap. He sat quietly for a time, absently petting the cats and like me, listening to the birds chattering as they settled for the night and the usual sounds of suburbia as the evening deepened.

 _ **:Give her time, Richard:**_ Till said to me at long last. _**:She 'll either come to you when she's ready or she'll tell you she's not. Push her and she'll be gone so fast your head will spin:**_

 _ **:At least she's not shutting me out anymore:**_ I replied, extracting myself from the cats and wandering back into the kitchen to pick at the last of the pizzas we had picked up on our way over. _**:I won't push her but damn, Till, I've got so much to say to her:**_

_**:Are you in love with her?:** _

I didn't hesitate a second. _**:Yes, I am. It hit me the first night I woke up in the hospital that trying to tell myself it was just friends with benefits that I was lying to myself. I haven't had the best luck with steady relationships and...this feels different:**_

Till didn't say anything. I could feel him thinking about what I'd said but beyond that, nothing. He patted my shoulder and said, "I'm for bed. Just think about what I said, all right?" Without waiting for me to reply, he headed out of the kitchen; I heard his footsteps as they went down the hallway and up the short flight of stairs to the second floor where the guest bedrooms were. My stomach growled, loudly, which took my mind off of thinking about Lilly and to the job of stuffing it full of pizza to shut it up. Once I was done, I put the leftovers in the fridge, washed the glass I'd been drinking tea out of and shut the kitchen lights off. I made my way to my bedroom, yawning and thinking of nothing more than sleep when I heard someone whisper my name. I went into the living room and found Lilly curled up at one end of the couch, blinking sleepily at me in the dim light from a lamp next to the couch. She patted the cushions next to her and said, "I have some things I need to say to you, Richard."

"Is it something I've done?" I asked, joining her and letting me wrap up in part of the quilt she had been curled under. "Because if it is, I'm really sorry."

"No, silly, it's nothing you've done!" she laughed at me. "No, it's just...I have a lot of feelings towards you and I'm not sure how to deal with them. I haven't dated a lot, and I only had a couple serious boyfriends growing up. So I don't have the usual amount of experience with guys that a woman usually does."

"Well, despite the rumors and all that, I haven't had more than a couple truly serious relationships myself," I said, fiddling with a corner of the quilt, nervousness starting to dance in my guts. "And a marriage that went tits up early on."

"It doesn't help that we're the "way" we are now," Lilly sighed. "I wish...and please don't get upset, Reesh, but I wish sometimes that I'd died the night...he...injected me with that virus, that I hadn't lived long enough to meet you. Or that I'd died the night we got out of that house of horrors."

I couldn't help myself, I panicked. I grabbed Lilly's hand and whimpered, "Lilly, don't say that. Please. Don't...don't leave us. Me. Whatever. Please don't leave me."

"Richard, can you imagine being with someone now who you can't hear inside your head? Someone who you can feel everything they feel when you're in bed with them? Have you forgotten that the viruses in us will infect anyone we sleep with, kiss, the whole nine yards? Do you blame me for feeling this way? I've ruined your life, I've ruined everyone's life."

 _ **:I haven't forgot one little thing, beautiful lady:**_ I sighed down our link. _**:I'm so glad I met you. So glad that you're in my life now,despite all the hurt and sadness that got us here. And now that you're here, I don't want to lose you. You haven't ruined anyone's life. You've given us such a great gift.:**_

_**:I don't know. You're a rock star. You're surrounded by beautiful people, a million temptations. As much as you want to think I could, I don't know if I could comfortably fit into your world any more than you could fit in mine. I'll always be grateful to you but...:** _

"Lilly, please give me a chance," I begged. "Come out on the road with us. We haven't hired a doctor for the road yet, and you're as good as. You know all of us better than anyone else on the planet,right? Let me show you my world and if it doesn't work out, then at least we've tried. I won't ask you to be more than my friend right now, okay? If you want to be...er...with someone else, that's fine. You're not mine to keep. But please, please give it a try."

"Come on, Lilly, tell the poor man yes before his head explodes and mine with it," Ollie said as he came into the living room. "For fuck's sake, Richard, can you tone it down a little? You're broadcasting as clear as a bell and I'm surprised people who aren't gifted as we are can't hear you."

"Sorry," I said, blushing at Ollie's exasperated tone. "Will you help me convince Lilly to come out on the road? 'Cause I'm not having a bit of luck here."

Ollie snort-laughed and sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs across from the couch. "Lilly, if you don't tell him yes, he's going to lock you into one of his road cases and drag you along like a cat in a cat carrier. If he doesn't, _I_ will. You need to get out of your head for awhile. Academia is fine but there's a big world out there you haven't seen."

"But...but I've got all this stuff to take care of! The lease on my house is overdue; I wouldn't be surprised if my stuff is boxed up and on the front lawn! And doesn't a tour physician have to be a doctor, a _real_ doctor? I might have a handful of degrees and a lot of practical experience but I'm nowhere near a doctor!"

"If your lease is up, you can stay here," I said, bouncing up from my seat and kneeling in front of Lilly. "Anything else that you have on your to-do list can either wait or you can take care of it on the road. And if we want you as our tour doctor, what we say our management will have to do."

By this point, Paul, Flake, Schneider and Till had come into the living room and were sitting on the floor, waiting for Lilly to say yes or veto the whole thing. "Lilly, come along with us," Flake insisted, eyes bright and shining with amusement. "You'll have a blast and so will we."

Lilly gazed down at Flake, a smile slowly breaking out on her face. She squeezed my fingers gently and said, "Oh, all right. I get to be den mother to six pyromanical, slightly brain-damaged Germans with a penchant for anything sweet and the occasional chance to dress up like a woman."

We probably woke the neighbors up with our shrieking with happiness but we couldn't help it. I ran to the kitchen to break out a bottle of wine I'd put in the pantry the day I'd bought the house from my friend Mark so he could pay his huge tax bill and not end up in prison. I hadn't really thought more of the house than somewhere to store some of my things I didn't need in Berlin or a respite from the hotels we stayed in, but now it seemed so much more. Smiling, I dug out seven wine glasses, made sure they were clean, and half-ran back to the living room, happier than I'd been in a long time.

::

Our management company was quite upset with us, to say the least, when we sort-of confessed as to where I'd been for two weeks and why no one had been able to get in touch with anyone else in the band. With Lilly's help, we cooked up a plausible story about me being sick as a dog from a bad case of the flu and finally ending up in the hospital. They didn't find out about what Lilly had gone through and as far as I'm concerned, they never will. They'll also never find out about what the rest of us went though either. They tried to argue with us when we insisted on Lilly being our tour doctor but they might as well have saved their breath. Like I said, when we want something, and want it badly, our management doesn't have much of a chance in not going along.

Jack got promoted, which he'd originally refused but had finally taken when he'd been promised that there would be a thorough investigation into the kidnappings of the homeless kids who had been Neal's prey and if there were any others to be found. He'd been put out somewhat when the military had chased him out of Neal's house in the middle of his investigation but in the end had thrown up his hands, accepted the evidence they gave him and called it good. We tried to talk him into taking a job with our security people-Ollie especially-but he'd refused, saying he liked where he was."Besides, I can finally help people," Jack told us one evening when we were having dinner at a little family restaurant he favored. "I know this sounds corny as hell, but I want to do what I can for people who don't have anything. If I don't, I know I'll be seeing the photos of those poor kids that died in that house in my nightmares for the rest of my life."

The night before we were to fly to New York City to start our two weeks of pre-tour practice with all our bells, whistles and such, Paul yelled from the living room where he'd been flipping through the TV to find something for all of us to watch before we went to bed, "Everyone! Get in here, you wanna see this!"

We came running, wondering what Paul was yelling about, and saw a reporter, dressed in a bright green jacket with the hood pulled up over his bleach-blonde hair, standing in front of a familiar house-a familiar house that was engulfed in fire. The reporter was saying something about the old house belonging to a man suspected in the killings of more than ten homeless children over a course of half a year. The reporter kept talking but none of us heard what he was saying; we were staring at the video. Schneider finally dug the remote out of Paul's hand and switched the TV off, leaving us in silence.

"If there was anything left in there, it's gone," Till said softly."Whoever set that used something that would burn fast and hotter than hell."

"How can you tell?" asked Lilly, curling into my side and shivering as I wrapped the blanket we'd been sharing a bit more tightly around her.

"Partially from the color of the flames and that the fire department isn't using water to try and put it out," our resident pyrotechnician replied. "They're keeping the houses around the fire wetted down but they're not trying to use the water on the house. Probably already tried and found out water didn't do anything."

"It can burn clear to hell as far as I'm concerned," Lilly said. "If I could I'd go over there with a priest when it's all done and pour holy water all over the place. And then salt the ground so nothing will ever grow there."

And with that, we wandered off to bed. Lilly had taken to sleeping with me every couple of nights, just curled in each other's arms,nothing else. I was happy to have her with me that way for now and hoped things would change down the road. With Lilly snuggled to my back, I drifted off to sleep, the memory of the cleansing flames in the back of my eyes following me to sleep.

::

_In a laboratory inside a high-security building somewhere barren and remote, a hazmat-suited technician slowly pushes a stainless-steel cart down a brightly-lit hallway. They approach a huge steel door that takes up almost all of the door frame, and stop long enough to carefully punch a code into the keypad next to the door, then lean in so a retinal scanner at the top of the pad can confirm their identity. Once these requirements have been satisfied, the door clicks open with a soft "pop," and "hiss" allowing the technician to wheel their cart into the room beyond. A short hallway leads to another door, this one not as big but just as secure as the first. They go through the identity conformation routine again, and once inside, they take a moment to look quickly about the cool,softly-lit room full of tall steel racks which are laden with carefully labeled, numerous boxes of all types, from matte-black to completely see-through, from plastic to metal._

_They consult a label on the top of one of the dozen boxes on the cart, then make their way to a rack far from the door, then turn down the aisle to stop in front a spot on a shelf that has a barcode attached to the shelf. Each box of samples are scanned with a handheld scanner then carefully placed in its appropriately labeled spot on the shelf. The technician completes their job, then turns to go, checking the little computer on the cart to make sure all of the entries are complete. They leave the vault, the door closing silently behind them._

_Seven of the dozen boxes are full of ten vials of blood, each of them color coded and labeled. The other five contain not only vials of blood, but also slivers of carefully preserved slices of brain tissue, bone marrow and tissue samples. These five boxes have been placed in a vacuum sealed container which is locked with an electronic lock and set aside slightly from the seven boxes as if its contents will contaminate anything it touches._

_Inside a plastic sleeve attached to the top of each box is a printout identifying from whom the blood in the seven boxes has come from, its type and a series of letters below that. If one were to open each box and take out the printout, they would see this;_

_**Subj:** LB/O neg/Variant 1_

_**Subj:** RZK/A+/Variant 1a_

_**Subj:** TL/A+/Variant 1 &1a=/R+_

_**Subj:** PHL/A+/Variant 1 &1a=/R+_

_**Subj:** OR/O neg/Variant 1 &1a=/R+_

_**Subj:** CL/O neg/Variant 1 &1a=/R+_

_**Subj:** CS/A+/VVariant 1 &1a=/R+_

_If one were able to gain access to the box full of blood, brain matter,tissue and bone marrow, the printout would read:_

_**Subj:N. Williams.** Original blood type unknown. Results of tests below:_

_Variants1, 1a, and six others present, here called Variants B-G. Variant Band C are of canine and human origin, most likely rabies and/or AIDS viruses. Variants D-E are a combination of Variants 1 and 1a, the rest are still under investigation but seem to be totally new variants. Information will be updated as per protocol._

_Biopsy of subject brain shows extreme disintegration of structures as well as numerous tumors of varying sizes and levels of malignancy. Brain at time of removal was weighed to be twice the weight of the normal human brain. Samples taken and preserved as per protocol._

_Photographs of subject and origin site are attached at the end of this report._

_Post autopsy of subject is listed as incomplete at this time. As per orders body was disposed according to Level 10 infection standards(Handwritten portion of report says, "Decomposition post autopsy at alarming rate. Body must be disposed of ASAP as to prevent possible infection spread."]._

_A note attached to a computer sitting in an office several floors above relates:_

_"All samples, etc, removed from Site 1z and put in the cooler. Congratulations on getting the name you requested for the new variants. See me tomorrow, I have tickets for you and Jay to see that weird German band you like next month. Good job!"_

_Scribbled on a piece of paper hidden just out of sight under the keyboard:_

_**"Variant from 1-1a** _

_**="Rammeleid " variant, aka R+"** _

  


 


End file.
